expose vs tunnelmole
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 | tunnelmole |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 89 · Excellent | 66 · Good |
| Category | Remote Access & VPN | Remote Access & VPN |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | PHP | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal, docker | binary, docker, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 4,574 | ★ 1,892 |
| First released | 2020 | 2021 |
| Replaces | ngrok | ngrok, localtunnel |
What are expose and tunnelmole?
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
tunnelmole
Tunnelmole is an open-source tunneling tool that gives local web servers a public URL. The client and server are both open source so the entire service can be self-hosted.
- Public URLs for local apps
- Self-hostable server
- No signup needed
- Cross-platform client
expose vs tunnelmole: key differences
Expose is written in PHP, while tunnelmole is built with TypeScript. Tunnelmole is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 256 MB for expose. Expose has the considerably larger community, at 4,574 GitHub stars versus 1,892.
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 tunnelmole if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (1.9k GitHub stars)
Frequently asked questions
Is expose or tunnelmole better?
Neither is universally better. expose has the larger community, while tunnelmole is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are expose and tunnelmole free and open-source?
Yes. expose is licensed under MIT and tunnelmole under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run expose and tunnelmole with Docker?
expose: yes. tunnelmole: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, expose or tunnelmole?
tunnelmole has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for expose. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.