frp vs GOST
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted remote access & vpn options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | frp | GOST |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 100 · Excellent | 91 · Excellent |
| Category | Remote Access & VPN | Remote Access & VPN |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | binary, docker | binary, docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 109,598 | ★ 7,527 |
| First released | 2016 | 2017 |
| Replaces | ngrok | Chisel, ngrok |
What are frp and GOST?
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
GOST
GOST is an open-source command-line tool that provides flexible secure tunneling and proxying with support for many protocols. It is self-hosted to build relay chains and forward traffic.
- Multi-protocol tunneling
- Relay chaining
- Port forwarding
- Single binary
frp vs GOST: key differences
Both projects are written in Go. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for frp versus MIT for GOST. Frp has the considerably larger community, at 109,598 GitHub stars versus 7,527.
Why pick each one
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
Choose GOST if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 7.5k GitHub stars
- Written in Go
Frequently asked questions
Is frp or GOST 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 frp and GOST free and open-source?
Yes. frp is licensed under Apache-2.0 and GOST under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run frp and GOST with Docker?
frp: yes. GOST: yes.