How Localport compares
An honest, side-by-side look at Localport, ngrok, Cloudflare Tunnels, and AWS IoT Core. Different products, different strengths. Here's what each one does and doesn't do.
Localport
Open-source tunnel client with mesh, shared, and mTLS. Flat team pricing.
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.
AWS IoT Core
Managed MQTT broker for massive IoT fleets with built-in device identity.
Feature matrix
What each product offers
Feature availability by product. Where a feature requires a paid tier, the tier is noted.
| Localport | ngrok | Cloudflare | AWS IoT | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Protocols | ||||
| HTTP / HTTPS | All plans | All plans | All plans | HTTP API |
| TCP | All plans | Paid plans | Configurable | — |
| TLS passthrough | All plans | Paid plans | — | — |
| MQTT | — | — | — | Native |
| Automatic HTTPS | Included | Included | Included | — |
| Security & access | ||||
| Mutual TLS (mTLS) | Pro ($20/mo) | Pay-as-you-go ($20/mo) | Zero Trust add-on | Built in (X.509) |
| IP allowlisting | All plans | Paid plans | Access rules | IoT policies |
| 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 | AWS Shield |
| Rate limiting | Roadmap | Included | WAF rules | Throttling |
| Payload inspection | Never | On by default | Proxied traffic | Rules engine |
| Tunnel modes | ||||
| Standard (1:1) | All plans | All plans | All plans | — |
| Mesh (URL per device) | All plans | — | — | Thing shadows |
| Shared (webhook fanout) | All plans | — | — | — |
| Platform & tooling | ||||
| Client transparency | Agent source on GitHub | Closed source | Cloudflared on GitHub | SDKs only |
| Web dashboard | Included | Included | CF dashboard | AWS Console |
| Custom domains | All plans | Paid plans | All plans | Custom endpoints |
| Request inspection | — | Built in | — | CloudWatch |
| API gateway | — | Paid plans | Workers | API Gateway |
| CDN / caching | — | — | Included | CloudFront |
| Pricing | ||||
| Billing model | Flat per team | Base + usage | Free + custom | Per message |
| Free tier | Free trials | Yes (limited) | Yes (HTTP only) | 12-mo free tier |
| Entry price | $5/mo | $8/mo (1 user) | $0 | ~$1/M msgs |
Team scaling
Flat pricing vs base + per-user
Localport Pro is $20/mo 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 developer | $5 | $0 or $8 | — |
| 3 developers | $20 | $20 | — |
| 5 developers | $20 | $30 | $10 |
| 10 developers | $20 | $55 | $35 |
| 20 developers | $20 | $105 | $85 |
| 50 developers | $20 | $255 | $235 |
Based on ngrok Pay-as-you-go tier at $20/mo base + $5/additional user (publicly listed pricing). 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 its own URL (mesh tunnels)
- Dev teams sharing webhooks across machines (shared tunnels)
- 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
AWS IoT Core
- Massive device fleets (thousands to millions of MQTT endpoints)
- Teams already deep in the AWS ecosystem
- Workloads requiring device shadows and server-side rules engine
- Production IoT deployments needing AWS-grade SLA and support
A modern ngrok alternative.
Flat team pricing from $5/mo. HTTP, TCP, TLS, and mTLS tunnels on every plan. Upgrade when you need more bandwidth, more tunnels, or dedicated infra.