localtunnel vs RustDesk
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?
Compare localtunnel with
choose an app… frp Headscale Sunshine Tailscale NPS JumpServer Algo VPN NetBird WG-Easy Neko Teleport GoTTY Moonlight Nebula ZeroTier Chisel Cockpit Termix OpenVPN Mosh rathole noVNC FreeRDP SoftEther VPN EasyTier ttyd Netmaker Sliver bore Apollo RustDesk Server Docker OpenVPN Firezone sshx Warpgate TigerVNC GOST MeshCentral n2n wstunnel Outline Server Webmin Next Terminal innernet Wetty KasmVNC WebSSH Remotely Pritunl Wirehole Nexterm zrok expose websockify Tactical RMM OpenZiti Webtop WireGuard Apache Guacamole Eternal Terminal pgrok Bastillion Sshwifty Shell In A Box strongSwan Xpra Headplane Defguard WebSSH2 Snowflake SSH Client tinc Games on Whales ShellHub Selkies Aspia tunnelmole ztncui Subspace frp-panel WireGuard Portal wayvnc PyRDP docker-baseimage-gui trzsz boringproxy SSHPiper Upterm Kasm Workspaces Headscale-Admin Wesher x11vnc Neko Rooms CloudTTY OpenConnect Server Apache Guacamole Lite gTunnel X2Go Guacozy Engity's Bifröst Cardea RPort Neutrinet SparkView
Compare RustDesk with
choose an app… frp Headscale Sunshine Tailscale JumpServer Algo VPN NetBird WG-Easy Neko Teleport GoTTY Moonlight Nebula ZeroTier Chisel Cockpit Termix OpenVPN Mosh rathole noVNC FreeRDP SoftEther VPN EasyTier ttyd Netmaker Sliver bore Apollo RustDesk Server Docker OpenVPN Firezone sshx Warpgate TigerVNC GOST MeshCentral n2n wstunnel Outline Server Webmin Next Terminal innernet Wetty KasmVNC WebSSH Remotely Pritunl Wirehole Nexterm zrok expose websockify Tactical RMM OpenZiti Webtop WireGuard Apache Guacamole Eternal Terminal pgrok Bastillion Sshwifty Shell In A Box strongSwan Xpra Headplane Defguard WebSSH2 Snowflake SSH Client tinc Games on Whales ShellHub Selkies Aspia tunnelmole ztncui Subspace WireGuard Portal wayvnc PyRDP docker-baseimage-gui trzsz boringproxy SSHPiper Upterm Kasm Workspaces Headscale-Admin Wesher x11vnc Neko Rooms CloudTTY OpenConnect Server Apache Guacamole Lite gTunnel X2Go Guacozy Engity's Bifröst Cardea RPort Neutrinet SparkView
Feature localtunnel RustDesk Category Remote Access & VPN Remote Access & VPN License MIT AGPL-3.0 Language JavaScript Rust Setup difficulty Easy Easy Min. RAM 128 MB 256 MB Deployment docker, binary docker, binary GitHub stars ★ 22,440 ★ 119,867 First released 2015 2021 Replaces ngrok TeamViewer, AnyDesk
Why pick each one
Choose localtunnel if… Released under the MIT license Easy to set up — beginner-friendly First-class Docker support for quick deployment Mature project with 22.4k GitHub stars localtunnel details
Frequently asked questions Is localtunnel or RustDesk better? Neither is universally better. RustDesk has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are localtunnel and RustDesk free and open-source? Yes. localtunnel is licensed under MIT and RustDesk under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run localtunnel and RustDesk with Docker? localtunnel: yes. RustDesk: yes.