Skip to content
SPECIFICTION
Get listed

ngrok

ngrok.com

From $10/mo Free plan WebWindowsmacOSLinuxAPISelf-hosted
Visit ngrok.com
Spec score 9.1 #1 of 33 in Reverse Proxy Software

What it is

ngrok is a cloud networking platform that secures, transforms, and routes traffic to services wherever they run. Its agent sends traffic through secure tunnels without requiring firewall changes. Traffic Policy uses CEL-based rules to route requests, authenticate them, apply rate limits or web application firewall controls, and reject them. Supported traffic includes HTTP, TLS, and TCP, including WebSockets, gRPC, SSH, Postgres, MQTT, and Minecraft. The Integrations Hub offers integrations and guides for areas such as SSO, databases, Kubernetes, OAuth, webhooks, and web servers. ngrok also verifies webhook signatures for more than 70 providers, including Stripe, GitHub, Twilio, Slack, and Shopify. The free plan includes $5 one-time usage, up to 3 online endpoints, up to 1GB data transfer, up to 20k HTTP/S requests, and one team member. Paid access starts at $10/mo. On Hobbyist, endpoints stop working when usage credit runs out, until the billing cycle ends and credit resets. ngrok lists region pinning across the United States, Europe, Asia Pacific, Australia, India, Japan, and South America.

Spec sheet

What it does
ngrok is developer infrastructure that routes and secures traffic to applications, APIs and AI models.Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com
Product
ngrok is an all-in-one cloud networking platform that secures, transforms, and routes traffic to services wherever they run.Read 30 Sep 2026 · ngrok.com
Audience
ngrok describes its Free and Hobbyist plans for developers, solo developers, home labs, and game servers, and Pay-as-you-go for teams shipping production traffic.Read 30 Sep 2026 · ngrok.com
Platforms
The download page provides agents for macOS, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Docker, Docker Desktop, and Raspberry Pi, plus SDKs and Kubernetes tooling.Read 30 Sep 2026 · ngrok.com
Integrations
Official documentation lists SDKs for Python, Go, Node and Rust and integrations including Okta SSO, Microsoft Entra ID and Datadog.Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com
Compliance
The company states SOC 2 Type 2, HIPAA with BAAs, GDPR, CCPA and EU-US Data Privacy Framework participation.Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com
Support
Paid support options include Dedicated On-Call with an 8 business hour SLA, plus Slack or Teams and 24×7 paging add-ons.Read 30 Sep 2026 · ngrok.com
Headquarters
San Francisco, California, United StatesRead 28 Sep 2026 · ngrok.com
Founded
2015Read 28 Sep 2026 · ngrok.com
AI Gateway
AI Gateway routes, secures and transforms traffic to AI models.Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com
API gateway
The gateway uses Traffic Policy to deliver and secure production APIs.Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com
Authentication
Edge authentication supports OAuth, OpenID Connect, SAML, JWT validation, mutual TLS and IP rules.Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com
Changelog news
On October 19, 2026 ngrok announced official packages for Next.js, FastAPI, Axum and Gin.Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com
Company facts
ngrok was founded in 2015, is based in San Francisco and is listed by Crunchbase at 51–100 employees.Read 20 Oct 2026 · crunchbase.com
Company legal name
Crunchbase lists the legal entity as ngrok, Inc.Read 20 Oct 2026 · crunchbase.com
Data residency
ngrok supports region pinning and lists points of presence in the United States, Europe, Asia Pacific, Australia, India, Japan, and South America.Read 30 Sep 2026 · ngrok.com
Device gateway
The product includes a device gateway for controlling IoT devices remotely.Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com
Documentation depth
The documentation includes quickstarts, conceptual guides, examples, Traffic Policy recipes and API reference pages.Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com
Encryption
ngrok encrypts databases, filesystems, and data warehousing at rest, and agent-to-edge connections use TLS 1.2 or higher.Read 30 Sep 2026 · ngrok.com
Free-plan limit
When Hobbyist usage credit runs out, endpoints stop working until the billing cycle ends and the credit resets.Read 30 Sep 2026 · ngrok.com
Funding
ngrok says it raised a $50 million Series A from Lightspeed and Coatue in 2022.Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com
Installation
Linux installation supports Apt, Snap and standalone binaries with no runtime dependencies.Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com
Kubernetes
The ngrok Operator provides ingress to applications in Kubernetes clusters.Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com
Licence
The hosted ngrok service is proprietary under its terms, while several official SDK, Terraform and operator repositories are MIT licensed.Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com
Limit: always-on hosting
A Trustpilot reviewer says ngrok requires an always-on computer for continuous hosting rather than providing cloud-only always-on service.Read 20 Oct 2026 · trustpilot.com
Limit: custom domains
A G2 reviewer says routing to custom domains is complex.Read 20 Oct 2026 · g2.com
Limit: pricing complexity
A G2 reviewer calls the pricing mechanism convoluted and says feature activation can wait until the next invoice cycle.Read 20 Oct 2026 · g2.com
Limit: reliability
A G2 reviewer reports occasional hard-to-debug failures and timeouts when serving full web pages.Read 20 Oct 2026 · g2.com
Limit: support
A G2 reviewer reports very poor customer support and misleading responses about plan requirements.Read 20 Oct 2026 · g2.com
Load balancing
Endpoint pooling load-balances traffic across multiple agents and can fail over to healthy backends.Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com
Localhost sharing
Its CLI exposes a local application through a public URL for development and testing.Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com
Observability
The platform logs configuration changes, authentication events and API calls and can stream events to SIEM systems.Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com
Okta integration
Okta documents using ngrok to expose local event-hook applications, inspect requests and replay calls during testing.Read 20 Oct 2026 · developer.okta.com
Praise: development workflow
Product Hunt reviewers praise fast, frictionless tunneling for development, testing, debugging and demos.Read 20 Oct 2026 · producthunt.com
Praise: ease of use
G2 reviewers repeatedly describe setup as easy and say ngrok quickly puts projects or local hosts online.Read 20 Oct 2026 · g2.com
Protocols
ngrok supports HTTP, TLS, and TCP, including WebSockets, gRPC, SSH, Postgres, MQTT, and Minecraft traffic.Read 30 Sep 2026 · ngrok.com
Public API
The API reference covers endpoints, domains, certificates, Traffic Policy, tunnels, observability, IAM, secrets and Kubernetes operators.Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com
Rating on G2
4.2 out of 5 from 15 reviewsRead 20 Oct 2026 · g2.com
Rating on Product Hunt
4.5 out of 5 from 14 reviewsRead 20 Oct 2026 · producthunt.com
Rating on Trustpilot
3.9 out of 5 from 8 reviewsRead 20 Oct 2026 · trustpilot.com
Rating on TrustRadius
0 out of 10 from 0 reviewsRead 20 Oct 2026 · trustradius.com
Scale
ngrok says 15.3 million developers have signed up for the platform.Read 30 Sep 2026 · ngrok.com
SDK extensibility
Agent SDKs let applications create and manage ngrok endpoints programmatically.Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com
Secure tunnels
The ngrok agent delivers traffic through a secure tunnel to services anywhere without firewall changes.Read 30 Sep 2026 · ngrok.com
Security encryption
ngrok encrypts stored data, uses TLS 1.2 or newer for agent-to-edge connections and separates control and data planes.Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com
Site-to-site connectivity
ngrok connects applications and databases in customer networks.Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com
TLS
ngrok provisions HTTPS certificates automatically and supports end-to-end encryption where it does not terminate TLS.Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com
Traffic policy
Traffic Policy can inspect, verify, transform, rate-limit or reject requests at the edge.Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com
Webhook verification
ngrok verifies webhook signatures for more than 70 providers, including Stripe, GitHub, Bitbucket, Twilio, Slack, and Shopify.Read 30 Sep 2026 · ngrok.com
Windows requirements
The Windows download offers Microsoft Store, WinGet, Scoop and a standalone executable with zero runtime dependencies.Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com

Plans and prices

Free Free $0 $5 one-time usage · 3 online endpoints · 1GB transfer · 20k HTTP/S requests · interstitial page · 1 team member Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com
Hobbyist $10 a month monthly $10 monthly usage · 3 online endpoints · 5GB transfer · 100k HTTP/S requests · ngrok-branded domains · 1 team member Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com
Pay-as-you-go $20 a month monthly plus additional usage $20 included usage · unlimited online endpoints · 5GB transfer included · 100k HTTP/S requests included · custom domains · unlimited team members Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com
Enterprise Priced on request contract pricing SSO/SAML · SCIM · dedicated-support SLAs · HIPAA/SOC 2/BAAs · AWS Marketplace · per-device or per-customer pricing Read 20 Oct 2026 · ngrok.com

Every ngrok plan and price →

Strong points and limits

Strong points

  • Secure tunnels work without firewall changes
  • Traffic Policy supports routing and authentication
  • Supports HTTP, TLS, and TCP traffic
  • Verifies signatures from more than 70 webhook providers
  • Region pinning spans multiple listed regions

Limits

  • Free plan allows up to 3 online endpoints
  • Free plan limits data transfer to 1GB
  • Free plan limits HTTP/S requests to 20k
  • Hobbyist endpoints stop when usage credit runs out

Who it suits

The Free and Hobbyist plans are described for developers, solo developers, home labs, and game servers. Pay-as-you-go is presented for teams shipping production traffic.

ngrok in depth

Read the full write-up

Overview

ngrok is a cloud networking platform for developers and teams that need to route traffic securely to services across different environments. Its mix of tunnels, request controls and protocol support is the draw; the trade-off is that low-cost plans cap usage, and Hobbyist endpoints stop when their credit runs out.

Founded in 2015 and headquartered in San Francisco, ngrok says 15.3 million developers have signed up. That scale may reassure teams considering a broadly used platform, but the more useful question is whether its usage limits and controls fit the workload.

Key features

Tunnels and traffic policy

The ngrok agent sends traffic through a secure tunnel to services wherever they run, without firewall changes. Traffic Policy adds CEL-based rules for routing and authenticating requests, rate limiting, applying web application firewall controls or rejecting traffic. That makes ngrok more than a way to expose a local service: it can also enforce request-level rules, provided a team is prepared to configure them.

Protocols and integrations

Support for HTTP, TLS and TCP extends to WebSockets, gRPC, SSH, Postgres, MQTT and Minecraft traffic. That breadth suits developers who need to connect services beyond conventional web apps. The Integrations Hub covers SSO, databases, event destinations, frameworks, Kubernetes, OAuth, protocols, webhooks and web servers. Signature verification for more than 70 webhook providers, including Stripe, GitHub, Bitbucket, Twilio, Slack and Shopify, can reduce the work of validating incoming events.

Security and operations

Agent-to-edge connections use TLS 1.2 or higher, and ngrok encrypts databases, filesystems and data warehousing at rest. It states that it is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant, supports HIPAA deployments and BAAs, is GDPR and CCPA compliant, and participates in the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. Region pinning and points of presence across the United States, Europe, Asia Pacific, Australia, India, Japan and South America give teams options for where traffic is handled. Paid support options include Dedicated On-Call with an 8 business hour SLA, plus Slack or Teams and 24×7 paging add-ons.

Pricing

The Free plan costs nothing, with $5 one-time usage, up to 3 online endpoints, 1GB of data transfer, 20k HTTP/S requests and 1 team member. It suits experiments and light personal use, but its modest allowances make it a poor fit for a service with sustained traffic. The plan's one-time included usage is distinct from Hobbyist's monthly credit.

Hobbyist costs $10 a month, billed monthly, and includes $10 monthly usage, up to 3 online endpoints, 5GB of data transfer, 100k HTTP/S requests and 1 team member. It is aimed at solo developers, home labs and game servers that need more room than Free. The crucial limitation is that when Hobbyist usage credit runs out, endpoints stop working until the billing cycle ends and the credit resets; that makes it unsuitable for workloads that cannot tolerate an interruption.

Pay-as-you-go costs $20 a month, billed monthly plus additional usage. It includes $20 monthly usage, unlimited online endpoints, data transfer, HTTP/S requests and team members. This is the more practical tier for teams shipping production traffic, especially when endpoint or team-member counts would constrain Hobbyist. Additional usage means the monthly price is not the full cost ceiling.

Enterprise has custom pricing on a contract basis. It adds SSO/SAML and SCIM, SLAs with dedicated support, HIPAA, SOC 2 and BAAs, AWS Marketplace, and per-device and per-customer pricing. It is the relevant option for organizations needing those enterprise controls or commercial terms; teams that do not need them can start with the usage-based tiers. A free trial is available.

Platforms

ngrok supports API, Linux, macOS, self-hosted, web and Windows. Its deployment model and configuration method are both, making it relevant to teams that need a mix of hosted and self-managed setups. TLS termination, rate limiting, WAF controls and WebSocket support are also included.

Who it's for

ngrok is a strong fit for developers who need secure access to services without firewall changes, especially when they also need request policies, webhook verification or less common protocol support. Free and Hobbyist are oriented toward developers, solo users, home labs and game servers; Pay-as-you-go is positioned for teams shipping production traffic. If a production service must remain available regardless of a usage-credit threshold, the Hobbyist hard stop rules it out.

Pros and cons

Pro: One platform covers secure tunnels and CEL-based routing, authentication, rate limiting and WAF controls, so teams can pair access with request handling.

Pro: Broad protocol support and verification for more than 70 webhook providers serve workloads beyond ordinary HTTP applications.

Pro: Region pinning, stated compliance support and higher-tier support options address needs that can matter in production deployments.

Con: Free and Hobbyist restrict endpoints, traffic, requests and team size; Hobbyist also stops endpoints when its usage credit is exhausted.

Con: Pay-as-you-go's $20 monthly price is paired with additional usage charges, so traffic growth can raise the bill.

Alternatives

Pomerium is worth considering when a smaller, explicitly capped access setup is enough: its free Personal plan includes 10 users, 10 routes, 5 policies and 2 service accounts, while Business is $7 a month.

LocalXpose is a simpler fit if two active HTTP or HTTPS tunnels, SSL/TLS encryption and unique subdomains cover the need; its Starter plan has time limits and an interstitial warning page.

BunkerWeb is an option for teams seeking a free, AGPLv3-licensed open-source web application firewall.

Caddy is another free option for teams looking for a web server or reverse proxy across platforms including Android, Linux, macOS and Windows.

freenginx suits readers who want a free, BSD-like licensed option for Linux, macOS, self-hosted or Windows environments.

NGINX is a free alternative when the need is a broad server and proxy stack, including content caching, load balancing and TCP/UDP or mail proxying.

Traefik Proxy is a free option for Kubernetes ingress, reverse proxying, load balancing and service auto-discovery.

For broader comparisons, see Reverse Proxy Software and Kubernetes Ingress Controllers.

Verdict

Choose ngrok if you need secure tunnels plus fine-grained traffic controls across a wide range of protocols, and can select a tier that matches your usage. Its main advantage is breadth in one platform; its main reason to look elsewhere is cost and availability risk at the lower tiers, particularly Hobbyist's hard stop when credit runs out.

Verdict

ngrok combines secure tunnels with traffic controls and broad protocol support. Its free plan has explicit usage limits, and Hobbyist endpoints pause when the plan's usage credit is exhausted until the next billing reset.

Where Specifiction places it

Alternatives to ngrokAll alternatives →