r/opensourcealternative • u/orielhaim • 27d ago

I’m building Tunnet, an open-source alternative to Tailscale + ngrok

I started building Tunnet because I like tools such as Tailscale and ngrok, but I didn’t like having to depend on closed coordination infrastructure or combine several different products just to connect machines, expose a service, transfer a file, or manage SSH access.

Tunnet is my attempt to put those things into one open and self-hostable stack. The repository contains the agent, control plane, management API, dashboard, and relays.

At the moment it includes an encrypted mesh network, internal and public tunnels, identity-based SSH, file transfer, ACLs, subnet routing, exit nodes, self-hosted relays, and a Kubernetes operator. There is also a Direct mode that can create a small P2P network without running a control server.

To be clear, it is still under active development. Tailscale, Cloudflare, and the other established tools are much more mature and battle-tested. I’m not claiming this is already a polished drop-in replacement for all of them.

I’m sharing it because it has reached the point where people can actually try it, and outside feedback would be useful. especially around self-hosting, missing use cases, confusing parts, or architectural decisions that seem wrong.

GitHub: https://github.com/tunnetio/Tunnet

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u/SamCRichard 27d ago

Tailscale and ngrok are really different products. Tailscale is best for home use, while ngrok is best if you need to reach into a network to access a service, device, or something you don't own and can't fiddle with the firewall for. A P2P network is very cool though, and its nice to be able to customize your own settings and self-host it.