expose vs gTunnel
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 | gTunnel |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 89 · Excellent | 8 · At risk |
| Category | Remote Access & VPN | Remote Access & VPN |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Language | PHP | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal, docker | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 4,574 | ★ 274 |
| First released | 2020 | 2020 |
| Replaces | ngrok | ngrok |
What are expose and gTunnel?
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
gTunnel
gTunnel is a self-hosted TCP tunneling tool built on gRPC that can forward and reverse-forward ports between a server and connected clients through firewalls. It is run as a server and client pair.
- gRPC-based tunneling
- Forward and reverse ports
- Firewall traversal
- Server-client model
expose vs gTunnel: key differences
Expose is written in PHP, while gTunnel is built with Go. Licensing differs — MIT for expose versus GPL-3.0 for gTunnel. GTunnel is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 256 MB for expose. Expose has the considerably larger community, at 4,574 GitHub stars versus 274.
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 gTunnel if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in Go
- Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is expose or gTunnel better?
Neither is universally better. expose has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are expose and gTunnel free and open-source?
Yes. expose is licensed under MIT and gTunnel under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run expose and gTunnel with Docker?
expose: yes. gTunnel: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, expose or gTunnel?
gTunnel 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.