frp 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 | frp | tunnelmole |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 100 · Excellent | 66 · Good |
| Category | Remote Access & VPN | Remote Access & VPN |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Language | Go | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | binary, docker | binary, docker, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 109,598 | ★ 1,892 |
| First released | 2016 | 2021 |
| Replaces | ngrok | ngrok, localtunnel |
What are frp and tunnelmole?
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
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
frp vs tunnelmole: key differences
Frp is written in Go, while tunnelmole is built with TypeScript. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for frp versus MIT for tunnelmole. Frp is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 128 MB for tunnelmole. Frp is the more established project (first released 2016), while tunnelmole arrived in 2021. Frp has the considerably larger community, at 109,598 GitHub stars versus 1,892.
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 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 frp or tunnelmole better?
Neither is universally better. frp 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 frp and tunnelmole free and open-source?
Yes. frp is licensed under Apache-2.0 and tunnelmole under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run frp and tunnelmole with Docker?
frp: yes. tunnelmole: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, frp or tunnelmole?
frp has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 128 MB for tunnelmole. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.