Everything ngrok meters, at one flat price.
An honest, side-by-side look at Localport, ngrok, and Cloudflare Tunnels. Different products, different strengths. Here is exactly what each one does, and where Localport pulls ahead on price, privacy, and the protocols you actually need.
Localport
Open-source agent with fleets, Fanout delivery, and certificate-gated remote access. Flat team pricing, and your traffic is never inspected.
ngrok
Established tunnel platform with request inspection and API gateway features.
Cloudflare Tunnels
Free HTTP tunnels backed by Cloudflare's global network and DDoS protection.
How much more
More headroom, dollar for dollar
Localport plans compared against the closest-priced ngrok tier. Every number below traces to ngrok's published pricing, with no inflated claims.
Hobby vs ngrok Hobbyist
$5/mo yearly vs $8/moAnd $3/mo cheaper - with TLS, fleets, Fanout, and a custom domain ngrok Hobbyist does not include.
Pro vs ngrok Pay-as-you-go
$20/mo yearly vs $20/mo + usageSame $20 base, no metered surprises. A 50-person team on ngrok Pay-as-you-go runs about $255/mo on seats alone.
Feature matrix
What each product offers
Feature availability by product. Where a feature requires a paid tier, the tier is noted.
| Localport | ngrok | Cloudflare | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Protocols | |||
| HTTP / HTTPS | All plans | All plans | All plans |
| TCP | All plans | Free (CC verify) + paid | Configurable |
| TLS passthrough | All plans | Pay-as-you-go | - |
| Automatic HTTPS | Included | Included | Included |
| Security & access | |||
| Mutual TLS (mTLS) | Pro ($20/mo yearly) | Pay-as-you-go ($20/mo) | Zero Trust add-on |
| IP allowlisting | All plans | Paid plans | Access rules |
| Password protection (basic auth) | All plans | Paid plans | Access policies |
| Force HTTPS redirect | All plans | Included | Included |
| DDoS protection | Roadmap; access controls today | Included | Global network |
| Rate limiting | Roadmap | Included | WAF rules |
| Payload inspection | Never | On by default | Proxied traffic |
| Tunnel modes | |||
| Standard (1:1) | All plans | All plans | All plans |
| Fleet (address per device) | All plans | - | - |
| Fanout delivery | All plans | - | - |
| Platform & tooling | |||
| Client transparency | Agent source on GitHub | Closed source | Cloudflared on GitHub |
| Web dashboard | Included | Included | CF dashboard |
| Custom domains | All plans | Pay-as-you-go (hourly) | All plans |
| Request inspection | - | Built in | - |
| API gateway | - | Paid plans | Workers |
| CDN / caching | - | - | Included |
| Pricing | |||
| Billing model | Flat per team | Base + usage | Free + custom |
| Free tier | Free trials | Yes (limited) | Yes (HTTP only) |
| Entry price | $5/mo yearly ($6 monthly) | $0 free / $8 Hobbyist | $0 |
| Included bandwidth | 20 GB → 150 GB | 1 GB → 5 GB | Unlimited (HTTP) |
| Team members included | 5 → 50 (flat) | 1 → 3, then $5/user | Per-seat |
Team scaling
Flat pricing vs base + per-user
Localport Pro is $20/mo billed yearly ($24 month-to-month) regardless of team size. ngrok Pay-as-you-go starts at $20/mo with 3 users included, then $5 per additional user. The gap widens past 3 developers.
| Team size | Localport | ngrok | You save | Cheaper by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 developer | $5 | $0 or $8 | - | - |
| 3 developers | $20 | $20 | - | 1× |
| 5 developers | $20 | $30 | $10 | 1.5× |
| 10 developers | $20 | $55 | $35 | 2.75× |
| 20 developers | $20 | $105 | $85 | 5.25× |
| 50 developers | $20 | $255 | $235 | 12.75× |
Based on ngrok Pay-as-you-go at $20/mo base with 3 users included, then $5 per additional user (publicly listed 2026 pricing); seat cost only, excluding ngrok's metered endpoint-hour and bandwidth usage. Localport figures are annual billing ($5/$20 per mo; $6/$24 month-to-month), flat for up to 50 members. Both products offer custom enterprise tiers.
Honest take
When to choose which
Every product has a sweet spot. Pick the one that matches your workload.
Localport
- Teams that need TCP/TLS without per-seat pricing
- IoT fleets where each device needs an address of its own
- Dev teams sharing webhooks across machines (Fanout)
- Organizations that want mTLS at $20/mo instead of enterprise contracts
- Anyone who needs to audit the tunnel client source code
ngrok
- Developers who rely on request inspection and replay for debugging
- Teams building API gateways with traffic policies at the tunnel
- Individual developers using the free tier for occasional use
- Organizations needing OAuth/OIDC authentication at the tunnel level
Cloudflare Tunnels
- HTTP-only workloads that benefit from CDN and DDoS protection
- Teams already on the Cloudflare platform
- Budget-sensitive projects that only need HTTP tunnels (free tier)
- Organizations using Cloudflare Zero Trust for access control
A modern ngrok alternative.
Flat team pricing from $5/mo billed yearly, with HTTP, TCP, and TLS on every plan and mutual TLS on Pro. The agent is open source, we never inspect your traffic, and your tunnels stay in the region you choose. Upgrade when you need more bandwidth, more tunnels, or dedicated infrastructure.