ngrok Alternatives 2026: 5 Free Options
ngrok alternatives: Cloudflare Tunnel, Tailscale, zrok, frp and 1 more. Prices and licenses checked October 22, 2026.
•3 min read•DevOps & Virtualization
Verdict:ngrok's Free plan includes a one-time $5 credit, 3 online endpoints, 1 GB of data transfer out, 20,000 HTTP requests a month and one development domain. That is fine for occasional webhook testing and gets tight once you demo a busy app. The Hobbyist plan is $10 a month. Before paying, decide what you use ngrok for. For showing a local app to a colleague, Cloudflare Quick Tunnels is the lowest-friction free route: one command, no account, no domain, though the URL changes every run and it is documented as for testing and development. For webhooks that need a stable hostname, a named Cloudflare Tunnel on a domain you own is the usual swap, and frp does the same job if you would rather run the server yourself on a cheap VPS. Tailscale answers a different question: if the audience is your team, a private network is safer than a public URL. zrok sits closest to ngrok in feel, with sharing commands, a hosted free plan and an Apache-2.0 license you can self-host. What you lose in each case is ngrok's polish: its Traffic Inspector for requests and a single vendor to call. Pinggy's free tunnels time out after 60 minutes. If you rely on request inspection while debugging webhooks, test whether the alternative's logging is good enough before you cancel.
Quick comparison
| Tool | Price | Platforms | Best for | Tested |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare Tunnel | Free (Quick Tunnels need no Cloudflare account or domain but give a random trycloudflare.com URL, no uptime guarantee, 200 in-flight requests per tunnel and no Server-Sent Events; named tunnels allow 1,000 per account) | macOS, Windows, Linux | A free tunnel to show a local app | Docs only |
| Tailscale | Free (Personal plan: up to 6 users and unlimited user devices, 50 tagged resources); paid from $8 per user/month (Standard) | macOS, Windows, Linux | Private access for you and your team | Docs only |
| zrok | Free (Hosted free plan: 5 GB per day, 25 environments, 50 share backends, 50 private access frontends, community support) | macOS, Windows, Linux | Open-source sharing you can self-host | Docs only |
| frp | Free (Free open-source software; you run the server (frps) on a machine with a public IP) | macOS, Windows, Linux | Self-hosted tunnels on your own server | Docs only |
| Pinggy | Free (Free plan with a 60-minute tunnel timeout) | macOS, Windows, Linux | Quick throwaway tunnels | Docs only |
Independent comparison. Paid placements are labelled separately; editorial links earn no affiliate commissions. Learn more.
Good fit if
- You need a quick public URL for a demo, no account (Cloudflare Tunnel is the pick)
- Teammates need private access to your dev machine (Tailscale is the pick)
- You want an open-source ngrok-like tool you can self-host (zrok is the pick)
- You already rent a VPS and want full control (frp is the pick)
- You want a short-lived tunnel without installing much (Pinggy is the pick)
Not ideal if
- You rely on ngrok features or integrations that these tools do not replicate
ngrok today: Free ($5 one-time credit, 3 online endpoints, 1 GB data transfer out, 20k HTTP/S requests per month, 1 development domain, 1 user); paid from $10 per month (Hobbyist) (ngrok pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Why people look for ngrok alternatives
ngrok's free plan gives a one-time $5 credit, 3 online endpoints, 1 GB of data transfer and 20k HTTP/S requests, with an interstitial page on HTTP/S endpoints, one development domain and no custom domains. Hobbyist at $10 a month removes the interstitial and raises limits to 5 GB and 100k requests, still without custom domains. Bringing your own domain needs pay-as-you-go at $20 a month plus usage: $0.10 per extra GB and $1 per extra 100k requests.
Cloudflare Tunnel
Compared with ngrok: Cloudflare Quick Tunnels need no account or domain and give a random trycloudflare.com URL. The URL changes every run and there is no uptime guarantee, so it fits testing. A stable hostname needs a Cloudflare account and a domain on Cloudflare.
Price: Free (Quick Tunnels need no Cloudflare account or domain but give a random trycloudflare.com URL, no uptime guarantee, 200 in-flight requests per tunnel and no Server-Sent Events; named tunnels allow 1,000 per account) (Cloudflare Tunnel pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: macOS, Windows, Linux. Proprietary service (cloudflared client is Apache-2.0).
Best for: A free tunnel to show a local app.
Worth knowing: Named tunnels need a Cloudflare account and a domain on Cloudflare. Quick Tunnels are documented as for testing and development.
Tailscale
Compared with ngrok: Tailscale's free Personal plan covers up to 6 users and unlimited devices. It is a private mesh VPN first, so teammates must install it. A Funnel feature exists for public exposure, but ngrok-style request inspection is not its job.
Price: Free (Personal plan: up to 6 users and unlimited user devices, 50 tagged resources); paid from $8 per user/month (Standard) (Tailscale pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: macOS, Windows, Linux. Proprietary.
Best for: Private access for you and your team.
zrok
Compared with ngrok: zrok is Apache-2.0 with a hosted free plan of 5 GB per day and 50 share backends. ngrok Free caps you at 1 GB of transfer and 3 endpoints. You can also self-host zrok without limits, but it is a smaller, newer project.
Price: Free (Hosted free plan: 5 GB per day, 25 environments, 50 share backends, 50 private access frontends, community support) (zrok pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: macOS, Windows, Linux. Apache-2.0 (open source).
Project activity: 4.8k GitHub stars · latest release v2.0.8 (Oct 8, 2026) · last commit Oct 27, 2026
Best for: Open-source sharing you can self-host.
frp
Compared with ngrok: frp is an Apache-2.0 reverse proxy that you run yourself, with a server on a machine that has a public IP and a client on your laptop. It has no caps or license cost, but you pay for the server and manage TLS and domains.
Price: Free (Free open-source software; you run the server (frps) on a machine with a public IP) (frp pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: macOS, Windows, Linux. Apache-2.0 (open source).
Project activity: 110.2k GitHub stars · latest release v0.71.1 (Oct 14, 2026) · last commit Oct 23, 2026
Best for: Self-hosted tunnels on your own server.
Worth knowing: Needs your own public server. No hosted service or built-in dashboard-style inspection like ngrok's.
Pinggy
Compared with ngrok: Pinggy has a free plan whose tunnels time out after 60 minutes. ngrok Free instead limits transfer to 1 GB. Check Pinggy's pricing page for paid plans before you commit.
Price: Free (Free plan with a 60-minute tunnel timeout) (Pinggy pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: macOS, Windows, Linux. Proprietary.
Best for: Quick throwaway tunnels.
Which one to pick
- You need a quick public URL for a demo, no account: Cloudflare Tunnel
- Teammates need private access to your dev machine: Tailscale
- You want an open-source ngrok-like tool you can self-host: zrok
- You already rent a VPS and want full control: frp
- You want a short-lived tunnel without installing much: Pinggy
Limits of this review
Docs-only for Cloudflare Tunnel, Tailscale, zrok, frp, Pinggy: we did not install or run them, so feature claims come from vendor pages and we did not test import from ngrok. Vendor prices and free limits change; confirm on the linked pricing page before you buy or migrate.
Related guides
Sources
Kevin Fan
Kevin Fan is a SaaS founder. He runs Free Instead Of, which tracks free and open-source alternatives to paid software and checks each price and free-plan limit against the vendor's own pages.
Methodology
Based on official pricing and product pages checked 2026-10-22: ngrok, Cloudflare Tunnel, Tailscale, zrok, frp, Pinggy. Prices, free limits and licenses are the figures shown on those pages on those dates. No tool on this page was installed or run. No accounts were created.