What is ngrok used for?

ngrok is developer infrastructure that exposes local apps and APIs to the internet and routes and secures traffic to services wherever they run. It is a good fit for sharing a local app with teammates, testing webhooks during development and exposing on-premises services securely.

Yes. ngrok has a free plan, and paid plans start at $10 per month. A free trial is also available.

Is ngrok open source?

No. ngrok is proprietary (closed-source) software and can't be self-hosted. Open-source alternatives to ngrok include Zrok, Rathole and frp.

What are some alternatives to ngrok?

ngrok competes with Cloudflare Tunnel, Tailscale and Hookdeck. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source ngrok alternatives.

ngrok: features, pricing and alternatives

About ngrok

ngrok is a commercial service that creates secure public endpoints for software running on a laptop, server or private network. Developers commonly use it to share a local web app, test webhooks locally, or expose a service to teammates without opening firewall ports.

The product has expanded into a gateway for delivering and securing traffic. Listed uses include sharing localhost, testing webhooks, connecting local MCP servers, routing traffic to self-hosted AI models, running preview and CI workloads, delivering and securing APIs, reaching customer networks and on-premises databases, connecting device fleets, and opening SSH and RDP sessions. There is also an AI Gateway for working with AI models.

ngrok is delivered as a hosted, proprietary service with a downloadable agent, docs, an API and a pricing page. It suits developers, DevOps teams and companies that need quick, secure tunnels and traffic management without building their own ingress infrastructure.

Key features

Public URLs for local applications
Local webhook testing
Traffic gateway for APIs
AI Gateway for model traffic
Private connectivity to on-premises systems
SSH and RDP access through tunnels
Downloadable agent and API

Good fit for

→Sharing a local app with teammates
→Testing webhooks during development
→Exposing on-premises services securely

Tags: tunneling; localhost; webhooks; api-gateway; developer-tools; networking

ngrok: questions and answers

What is ngrok used for?: ngrok is developer infrastructure that exposes local apps and APIs to the internet and routes and secures traffic to services wherever they run. It is a good fit for sharing a local app with teammates, testing webhooks during development and exposing on-premises services securely.
Is ngrok free?: Yes. ngrok has a free plan, and paid plans start at $10 per month. A free trial is also available.
Is ngrok open source?: No. ngrok is proprietary (closed-source) software and can't be self-hosted. Open-source alternatives to ngrok include Zrok, Rathole and frp.
What are some alternatives to ngrok?: ngrok competes with Cloudflare Tunnel, Tailscale and Hookdeck. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source ngrok alternatives.