frp vs pgrok
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 | pgrok |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 100 · Excellent | 79 · Good |
| 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 | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 109,598 | ★ 3,649 |
| First released | 2016 | 2023 |
| Replaces | ngrok | ngrok |
What are frp and pgrok?
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
pgrok
pgrok is an open-source, self-hosted alternative to ngrok for exposing local web servers to the internet via secure tunnels. It uses SSH for transport and is simple to deploy.
- SSH-based tunneling
- Self-hosted server
- Custom subdomains
- Lightweight Go binary
frp vs pgrok: key differences
Both projects are written in Go. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for frp versus MIT for pgrok. Frp is the more established project (first released 2016), while pgrok arrived in 2023. Frp has the considerably larger community, at 109,598 GitHub stars versus 3,649.
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 pgrok if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (3.6k GitHub stars)
- Written in Go
Frequently asked questions
Is frp or pgrok 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 pgrok free and open-source?
Yes. frp is licensed under Apache-2.0 and pgrok under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run frp and pgrok with Docker?
frp: yes. pgrok: yes.