BitBang

What hackers pick instead

• Cloudflare Quick TunnelsFree, account-less way to share a local web service over HTTPS with one command; caveat: critics say it is not for long-lived production.29recommend
• ngrokPeople recommend it for quickly exposing a local port with little setup; the most common caveat is a restrictive free tier.19recommend
• Tunnl.ggRecommended as a free, client-free way to expose a local service with no signup. Critics say it is unsuitable for production and risky for traffic privacy.12recommend
• PinggyPeople recommend it as a simple way to expose localhost with one command, using plain SSH and no software to install, and as an alternative to ngrok.6recommend
• sishPeople recommend sish for exposing local development servers over the network through SSH, with automatic TLS. Critics raise no recurring complaints in these quotes.6recommend

Every quote

The 12 most detailed of 15 comments. Each links to the original.

1. Its really clever and minimal approach to getting (for my use case at least) the moral equivalent of a cloudflare tunnel

   Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “Show HN: BitBang – turn any machine into a URL”

2. product seems to be unfinished or at least still not usable considering the problem it is solving

   Mixed · Aug 2026 · in “Show HN: BitBang – turn any machine into a URL”

3. an open source alternative to Tailscale, to be more precise, and an excellent one at that!

   Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “Show HN: BitBang – turn any machine into a URL”

4. It claims to be P2P, but it still needs to bootstrap the connection via central server.

   Mixed · Jul 2026 · in “Show HN: BitBang – turn any machine into a URL”

5. This idea has so much promise, I hope this is the project that makes it take off.

   Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “Show HN: BitBang – turn any machine into a URL”

6. I've been using it and it certainly has the potential.

   Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Internet centralization and the original sin of NAT”

7. Looking forward to trying bitbang! Seems super neat

   Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Show HN: BitBang – turn any machine into a URL”

8. it's a phonebook rather than a keyring

   Mixed · Jul 2026 · in “Show HN: BitBang – turn any machine into a URL”

9. There's nothing to install on the connecting side, no account, no port forwarding.

   Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “Show HN: BitBang – turn any machine into a URL”

10. This is a really useful feature and on the top of my todo list

    Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Show HN: BitBang – turn any machine into a URL”

11. Super cool as a quick way to relay vid.

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “Show HN: BitBang – P2P tunnels to localhost, no account required”

12. Sounds like all I need to do is get this onto a machine and find a way to open the url click exploit or something

    Criticizes · Aug 2026 · in “Show HN: BitBang – turn any machine into a URL”