expose vs RPort
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 | RPort |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 89 · Excellent | 0 · 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 | 256 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal, docker | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 4,574 | ★ 21 |
| First released | 2020 | 2020 |
| Replaces | ngrok | TeamViewer, ngrok |
What are expose and RPort?
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
RPort
RPort is an open-source remote management solution that lets you access and control servers and desktops behind firewalls. It provides tunnels, scripting, and a web UI.
- Remote access behind firewalls
- On-demand tunnels
- Script execution at scale
- Web management UI
expose vs RPort: key differences
Expose is written in PHP, while RPort is built with Go. Licensing differs — MIT for expose versus GPL-3.0 for RPort. Expose has the considerably larger community, at 4,574 GitHub stars versus 21.
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 RPort if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in Go
- Tiny footprint — runs in 256 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is expose or RPort 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 RPort free and open-source?
Yes. expose is licensed under MIT and RPort under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run expose and RPort with Docker?
expose: yes. RPort: yes.