frp 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 | frp | gTunnel |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 100 · Excellent | 8 · At risk |
| Category | Remote Access & VPN | Remote Access & VPN |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | binary, docker | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 109,598 | ★ 274 |
| First released | 2016 | 2020 |
| Replaces | ngrok | ngrok |
What are frp and gTunnel?
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
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
frp vs gTunnel: key differences
Both projects are written in Go. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for frp versus GPL-3.0 for gTunnel. Frp is the more established project (first released 2016), while gTunnel arrived in 2020. Frp has the considerably larger community, at 109,598 GitHub stars versus 274.
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 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 frp or gTunnel 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 gTunnel free and open-source?
Yes. frp is licensed under Apache-2.0 and gTunnel under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run frp and gTunnel with Docker?
frp: yes. gTunnel: yes.