frp-panel vs NPS
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted reverse proxy & gateways options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | frp-panel | NPS |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 71 · Good | 30 · At risk |
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Language | TypeScript | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,831 | ★ 34,229 |
| First released | 2023 | 2019 |
| Replaces | ngrok | ngrok |
What are frp-panel and NPS?
frp-panel
frp-panel is a self-hosted distributed management panel for frp, the fast reverse proxy, allowing centralized configuration of clients and tunnels through a web UI. It runs as a container alongside frp.
- Web panel for frp
- Centralized tunnel config
- Multi-client management
- Self-hostable
NPS
NPS is a lightweight, feature-rich intranet penetration proxy server with a web management interface, supporting TCP, UDP, HTTP and SOCKS5 tunnels. It is self-hosted on a public server and clients.
- Intranet penetration
- Web management UI
- Multiple protocols
- Lightweight
frp-panel vs NPS: key differences
Frp-panel is written in TypeScript, while NPS is built with Go. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for frp-panel versus GPL-3.0 for NPS. NPS is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 128 MB for frp-panel. NPS is the more established project (first released 2019), while frp-panel arrived in 2023. NPS has the considerably larger community, at 34,229 GitHub stars versus 1,831.
Why pick each one
Choose frp-panel if…
- Released under the Apache-2.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (1.8k GitHub stars)
- Written in TypeScript
Choose NPS if…
- Web management interface
- Many protocol tunnels
- Lightweight single binary
Watch out for
- Docs mostly Chinese
- Development largely stalled
Frequently asked questions
Is frp-panel or NPS better?
Neither is universally better. NPS has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are frp-panel and NPS free and open-source?
Yes. frp-panel is licensed under Apache-2.0 and NPS under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run frp-panel and NPS with Docker?
frp-panel: yes. NPS: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, frp-panel or NPS?
NPS has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 128 MB for frp-panel. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.