fatedier/frp

A fast Go reverse proxy that exposes local services behind NAT/firewalls to the internet — the canonical "ngrok alternative" in OSS.

What it is

A Go-based reverse proxy that consists of a server (frps, run on a public host) and a client (frpc, run on the machine you want to expose). The client opens an outbound connection to the server; incoming traffic on the public endpoint is forwarded down that tunnel to the local service. Supports TCP, UDP, HTTP, HTTPS, STCP (secret TCP), P2P modes. Apache 2.0 licensed.

Key features

TCP / UDP / HTTP / HTTPS / STCP / XTCP tunnel types.
Custom domain support for HTTP(S) tunnels with TLS termination at the frps server.
Authentication via tokens, OIDC, mTLS.
Bandwidth limits, load balancing across multiple frpcs.
Web admin dashboard for tunnel monitoring.
Cross-platform binaries (Linux, macOS, Windows, ARM).
Apache 2.0 licensed.

Tech stack

Go primary.
Single binary per side (frps server + frpc client).

When to reach for it

You're exposing a self-hosted service from home to the internet and you control a public VPS.
You're an SRE / homelab user who wants the OSS alternative to ngrok / Cloudflare Tunnel.
You need TCP / UDP / non-HTTP protocols, which most managed alternatives don't support.

When not to reach for it

You want zero-setup managed — ngrok, Cloudflare Tunnel are easier.
You don't have a public-IP machine to run frps on.

Maturity signal

107k stars, 15k forks, Apache 2.0, actively maintained. 9+ years. Open-issues count of 45 is exceptionally low.

Alternatives

ngrok — commercial, managed, faster setup.
Cloudflare Tunnel — free, managed, requires Cloudflare-managed DNS.
tailscale Funnel — peer-to-peer-flavored alternative.

Wiki: fatedier/frp