expose vs frp
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted remote access & vpn options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | expose | frp |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 89 · Excellent | 100 · Excellent |
| Category | Remote Access & VPN | Remote Access & VPN |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | PHP | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal, docker | binary, docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 4,574 | ★ 109,574 |
| First released | 2020 | 2016 |
| Replaces | ngrok | ngrok |
What are expose and frp?
expose
expose is an open-source, PHP-based tunneling tool that shares local websites with anyone via a secure public URL. The server can be fully self-hosted on your own domain.
- Self-hosted tunnel server
- Custom domains and subdomains
- Request inspection
- Built with Laravel
frp
frp is a fast reverse proxy that exposes a local server located behind a NAT or firewall to the internet. It supports TCP, UDP, HTTP, and HTTPS tunneling.
- Expose services behind NAT
- TCP, UDP, and HTTP tunnels
- Single binary
- Encryption and compression
expose vs frp: key differences
Expose is written in PHP, while frp is built with Go. Licensing differs — MIT for expose versus Apache-2.0 for frp. Frp is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 256 MB for expose. Frp is the more established project (first released 2016), while expose arrived in 2020. Frp has the considerably larger community, at 109,574 GitHub stars versus 4,574.
Why pick each one
Choose expose if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (4.6k GitHub stars)
- Written in PHP
Choose frp if…
- Single lightweight binary
- TCP UDP HTTP tunneling
- Battle-tested and popular
Watch out for
- Needs a public server
- Manual config file editing
Frequently asked questions
Is expose or frp better?
Neither is universally better. frp has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are expose and frp free and open-source?
Yes. expose is licensed under MIT and frp under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run expose and frp with Docker?
expose: yes. frp: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, expose or frp?
frp has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for expose. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.