localtunnel
Ranked 7 of 7 tunneling services by recommenders
People recommend localtunnel as a quick, free way to expose a local server with a few commands; critics note it drops connections and needs a bypass header.
People recommend localtunnel as a quick, free way to expose a local server with a few commands; critics note it drops connections and needs a bypass header.
7 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 71%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 2.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Drops connections, needs bypass header
“It works but drops connections and requires a bypass-tunnel-reminder header on every request.”
Comment from 18 Mar 2026 in “A ngrok-style secure tunnel server written in Rust and Open Source” Slow compared with alternatives
“I was trying ngrok, localtunnel, and a couple more, they all were pretty slow”
Comment from 19 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Pipenet – A Modern Alternative to Localtunnel” Hard to deploy in restrictive environments
“makes localtunnel tricky to deploy in restrictive environments”
Comment from 20 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Pipenet – A Modern Alternative to Localtunnel”
Other tunneling services people recommend
The four most recommended other tunneling services, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare Quick Tunnels | 29 | 26 | 53% | 1 | — | — |
| ngrok | 19 | 14 | 58% | 11 | — | — |
| Tunnl.gg | 12 | 4 | 75% | 2 | — | — |
| BitBang | 10 | 1 | 91% | 3 | — | — |
| localtunnelThis page | 5 | 2 | 71% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
All 7 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“few commands and your server is live”
“It works but drops connections and requires a bypass-tunnel-reminder header on every request.”
“makes localtunnel tricky to deploy in restrictive environments”
“I was trying ngrok, localtunnel, and a couple more, they all were pretty slow”
“Nice thing about that one is that its oss, actually we forked it in my company to do some more custom stuff.”
“this is amazing, exactly what I needed”
“localtunnel[1] is one good option, at least for now.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.