frp vs wstunnel
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted remote access & vpn options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
frp
Fast reverse proxy to expose local servers behind NAT
VS
wstunnel
Tunnel TCP and UDP traffic over WebSocket or HTTP2
| Feature | frp | wstunnel |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Remote Access & VPN | Remote Access & VPN |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Language | Go | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | binary, docker | binary, docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 108,622 | ★ 6,948 |
| First released | 2016 | 2015 |
| Replaces | ngrok | Chisel |
Why pick each one
Choose frp if…
- Released under the Apache-2.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 108.6k GitHub stars
- Written in Go
Choose wstunnel if…
- Released under the BSD-3-Clause license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 6.9k GitHub stars
- Written in Rust
Frequently asked questions
Is frp or wstunnel 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 wstunnel free and open-source?
Yes. frp is licensed under Apache-2.0 and wstunnel under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run frp and wstunnel with Docker?
frp: yes. wstunnel: yes.