rathole vs zrok
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted remote access & vpn options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
zrok
Open-source sharing platform built on OpenZiti
| Feature | rathole | zrok |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 75 · Good | 88 · Excellent |
| Category | Remote Access & VPN | Remote Access & VPN |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Rust | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | binary, docker | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 14,252 | ★ 4,720 |
| First released | 2021 | 2022 |
| Replaces | ngrok, frp | ngrok |
What are rathole and zrok?
rathole
rathole is a secure, stable, and high-performance reverse proxy for NAT traversal written in Rust. It is a lightweight alternative to frp with a small binary and low memory use.
- NAT traversal tunneling
- Tiny memory footprint
- Noise protocol encryption
- High connection capacity
zrok
zrok is an open-source peer-to-peer sharing platform built on the OpenZiti zero-trust network. It lets you share local web servers, files, and TCP services with public or private access.
- Public and private sharing
- Built on OpenZiti
- Self-hostable instances
- Frontend for web and TCP
rathole vs zrok: key differences
Rathole is written in Rust, while zrok is built with Go. Rathole is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 256 MB for zrok. Rathole has the considerably larger community, at 14,252 GitHub stars versus 4,720.
Why pick each one
Choose rathole if…
- Tiny binary and memory use
- Simple TOML config
- Encrypted transport
Watch out for
- Fewer features than frp
- No web dashboard
Choose zrok if…
- Released under the Apache-2.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (4.7k GitHub stars)
- Written in Go
Frequently asked questions
Is rathole or zrok better?
Neither is universally better. rathole has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are rathole and zrok free and open-source?
Yes. rathole is licensed under Apache-2.0 and zrok under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run rathole and zrok with Docker?
rathole: yes. zrok: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, rathole or zrok?
rathole has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for zrok. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.