expose vs tunnelmole
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?
expose
Beautiful, fully open-source tunnel to localhost
VS
tunnelmole
Open-source tunnel to expose local servers to the internet
| Feature | expose | tunnelmole |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Remote Access & VPN | Remote Access & VPN |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | PHP | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal, docker | binary, docker, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 4,567 | ★ 1,885 |
| First released | 2020 | 2021 |
| Replaces | ngrok | ngrok, localtunnel |
Why pick each one
Choose expose if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (4.6k GitHub stars)
- Written in PHP
Choose tunnelmole if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (1.9k GitHub stars)
Frequently asked questions
Is expose or tunnelmole better?
Neither is universally better. expose has the larger community, while tunnelmole is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are expose and tunnelmole free and open-source?
Yes. expose is licensed under MIT and tunnelmole under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run expose and tunnelmole with Docker?
expose: yes. tunnelmole: yes.