nowfound

Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to PipeGate – A Lightweight, Self-Hosted Proxy to Expose Local Servers

Hi Hacker News, I’d like to introduce PipeGate, a lightweight, self-hosted proxy built with FastAPI. I created PipeGate as a fun little exercise to understand how tunneling services work under the hood. PipeGate allows you to expose your local servers to the internet, giving you full control over your setup.

PipeGate is a lightweight, self-hosted proxy built with FastAPI that exposes local servers to the internet. Designed for developers who want full control over their tunneling setup, it works as an alternative to… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. PipeGate – A Lightweight, Self-Hosted Proxy to Expose Local Servers launched in 2024; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

  1. 1PA

    Hey HN! localtunnel's server needs random ports per client. That doesn't work on Fly.io or behind strict firewalls. We rewrote it in TypeScript and added multiplexing over a single port. Open-source and 100% self-hostable. Public instance at *.pipenet.dev if you don't want to self-host. Built at Glama for our MCP Inspector, but it's a generic tunnel with no ties to our infra. https://github.com/punkpeye/pipenet

    Jan 2026 · pipenet.dev · its alternatives →

  2. 2

    The Internet’s fastest, privacy-first DNS resolver

    2018 · one.one.one.one · its alternatives →

  3. 3
    btunnel▲117

    No more localhost, welcome to the internet

    2023 · its alternatives →

  4. 4
  5. 5

    Faster, more private internet by Cloudflare, now on mobile

    2018 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →

  6. 6

    Pangolin is an open source self-hosted tunneled reverse proxy management server with identity and access control, designed to securely expose private resources through encrypted WireGuard tunnels running in user space. We made Pangolin so you retain full control over your infrastructure while providing a user-friendly and feature-rich solution for managing proxies, authentication, and access, all with a clean and simple dashboard web UI. GitHub: https://github.com/fosrl/pangolin Deployment takes about 5 minutes on a VPS:…

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  7. 7
    Pinggy▲282

    Public URLs for localhost without downloading any binary

    2024 · pinggy.io · its alternatives →

  8. 8

    Pinggy is the simplest way to bring your localhost projects online. It the the fastest way to create secure tunnels to localhost with a public url.

    2023 · pinggy.io · its alternatives →

  9. 9

    WireHub is a side project I've been working on, on and off, for close to a year now. It's made with django and minimal javascript. It's a hosted WireGuard config generator/manager, that you can invite others to join your networks and manage their own configs/devices. It's still very much a beta, maybe an mvp, but I just wanted to get some early from the community. Thanks!

    2023 · wirehub.org · its alternatives →

  10. 10

    TL;DR: I built a lightweight, self-hosted HTTP tunnel that turns localhost into a public HTTPS URL. No paid plans, no secret black boxes. Just one Go binary, Caddy with wildcard TLS, and a $0/month Oracle Cloud VM. GitHub repo Why I Built It My development workflow lives mostly on a free Oracle Clou

    2025 · nexo.sh · its alternatives →

  11. 11

    WireHole offers a unified docker-compose project that integrates WireGuard, PiHole, and Unbound, complete with a user interface. This solution is designed to empower users to swiftly set up and manage either a full or split-tunnel WireGuard VPN. It features ad-blocking capabilities through PiHole and enhanced DNS caching and privacy options via Unbound. The intuitive UI makes deployment and ongoing management straightforward, providing a comprehensive VPN solution with added privacy features.

    2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

  12. 12

    This program can be used to tunnel TCP connections through a file. People have used it for interesting things: - Bridging connections which would otherwise be blocked by a firewall - Tunneling through RDP (similar to an SSH tunnel) - Exposing a localhost web server to others Key features I put effort into: 1. The shared file is restarted every 10 MB, so it doesn't grow indefinitely. 2. Optimisations for latency & bandwidth. (800 Mbps on a Gigabit LAN. 108 Mbps if file tunneling through RDP) 3. Synchronisation between two sides (each side can be started and restarted in any order) I'd love to…

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  13. 13

    A fast SOCKS5 proxy that tunnels your traffic through what looks like normal SMTP email, bypassing Deep Packet Inspection firewalls. How it works: - Client runs a local SOCKS5 proxy (127.0.0.1:1080) - Traffic is sent to server disguised as SMTP (EHLO, STARTTLS, AUTH) - DPI sees legitimate email session, not a VPN/proxy Features: - One-liner install on any Linux VPS - Multi-user with per-user secrets and IP whitelists - Auto-generated client packages (just double-click to run) - Auto-reconnect on connection loss - Works with any app that supports SOCKS5 Tech: Python/asyncio, TLS…

    Jan 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  14. 14
    Expose▲126

    Share your local sites via secure tunnels

    2021 · expose.dev · its alternatives →

  15. 15
    Routepath▲108

    Simple HTTPS, routing, and custom domains for your sites

    2020 · its alternatives →

  16. 16

    Contribute to minikomi/pipesock development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2013 · github.com · its alternatives →

  17. 17IM

    Tools, calculator, and helpful information for network engineering, web developers, and IT professionals.

    2013 · tunnelsup.com · its alternatives →

  18. 18

    *Pipy* is an [open-source](https://github.com/flomesh-io/pipy), lightweight, high-performance, modular, programmable, cloud-native network stream processor that is ideal for a variety of use-cases like edge routers, load balancers & proxy solutions, API gateways, static HTTP servers, service mesh sidecars, policy agents, and other applications.

    2022 · github.com · its alternatives →

  19. 19MS

    malai is a peer to peer network, and is a dead simple to share your local development HTTP server, without setting up tunnels, dealing with firewalls, or relying on cloud services. In malai 0.2.5, we have added TCP support, which means you can expose any TCP service to others using malai, without opening the TCP service related port to Internet. With malai installed on both ends, any TCP service can be securely tunneled over it. It can be used to secure your SSH service, or securely share your database server. GitHub: https://github.com/kulfi-project/kulfi (star us!)…

    2025 · malai.sh · its alternatives →

  20. 20

    Tabserve gives you a https url for localhost using only the browser (tabserve.dev). Take a look: https://tabserve.dev

    2023 · tabserve.dev · its alternatives →

  21. 21

    Hey HN! This is Adil, Salman and Jose and and we’re behind archgw [1]. An intelligent proxy server designed as an edge and AI gateway for agents - one that natively know how to handle prompts, not just network traffic. We’ve made several sweeping changes so sharing the project again. A bit of background on why we’ve built this project. Building AI agent demos is easy, but to create something production-ready there is a lot of repeat low-level plumbing work that everyone is doing. You’re applying guardrails to make sure unsafe or off-topic requests don’t get through. You’re clarifying vague…

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  22. 22

    Greetings! We are excited to announce pipe: our managed pubsub service over ssh. We are at a point where we would love to get feedback on the service to see if it resonates with the HN crowd. All you need to use `pipe` is a pico account which can be created using ssh: `ssh pico.sh` We've been using it internally for a few weeks now and keep coming up with new use cases. For example, we are using `pipe` to create a log drain for all of our services and even a way to share logs with users. You can read more about it on our blog post: https://blog.pico.sh/pubsub

    2024 · pipe.pico.sh · its alternatives →

  23. 23

    Automate "airgapped" server proxy with ssh socks proxy - AkselAllas/airgapt

    2021 · github.com · its alternatives →

  24. 24

    Cloudflare Tunnels, managed from your menu bar

    Jun 2026 · barflare.app · its alternatives →

Also compare

Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →