gTunnel vs expose
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?
gTunnel
Robust TCP tunneling solution over gRPC
VS
expose
Beautiful, fully open-source tunnel to localhost
| Feature | gTunnel | expose |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Remote Access & VPN | Remote Access & VPN |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | Go | PHP |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | bare-metal, docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 273 | ★ 4,567 |
| First released | 2020 | 2020 |
| Replaces | ngrok | ngrok |
Why pick each one
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
Choose expose if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (4.6k GitHub stars)
- Written in PHP
Frequently asked questions
Is gTunnel or expose better?
Neither is universally better. expose has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are gTunnel and expose free and open-source?
Yes. gTunnel is licensed under GPL-3.0 and expose under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run gTunnel and expose with Docker?
gTunnel: yes. expose: yes.