GOST 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 | GOST | gTunnel |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 91 · Excellent | 8 · At risk |
| Category | Remote Access & VPN | Remote Access & VPN |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | binary, docker | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 7,527 | ★ 274 |
| First released | 2017 | 2020 |
| Replaces | Chisel, ngrok | ngrok |
What are GOST and gTunnel?
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
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
GOST vs gTunnel: key differences
Both projects are written in Go. Licensing differs — MIT for GOST versus GPL-3.0 for gTunnel. GOST is the more established project (first released 2017), while gTunnel arrived in 2020. GOST has the considerably larger community, at 7,527 GitHub stars versus 274.
Why pick each one
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
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 GOST or gTunnel better?
Neither is universally better. GOST has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are GOST and gTunnel free and open-source?
Yes. GOST is licensed under MIT and gTunnel under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run GOST and gTunnel with Docker?
GOST: yes. gTunnel: yes.