Rathole
Secure, high-performance reverse proxy for NAT traversal written in Rust.
- Proxy & VPN
- Rust
- Apache-2.0
- Docker
- Actively maintained
GitHub stats
- GitHub stars
- 14,296
- Forks
- 842
- Open issues
- 77
- Commits, last 12 months
- 1
- Last commit
- Aug 23, 2026
- Latest release
- v0.5.0Oct 1, 2023
- Created
- Dec 14, 2021
Data from the GitHub API, refreshed daily.
About Rathole
Secure, high-performance reverse proxy for NAT traversal written in Rust. Rathole is open source under the Apache-2.0 license and written mainly in Rust, so you can read the code, run it on your own hardware and keep full control of your data.
The project has 14,296 stars and 842 forks on GitHub, with 1 commits over the last year. It ships a Docker image, which makes it a good fit for a small VPS or a home server running Docker Compose.
Topics
- nat
- tunnel
- rust
- network
- firewall
- frp
- http
- proxy
- noise
- noise-protocol
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What is Rathole?
Rathole is a free, open-source app you can host on your own server, listed in our Proxy & VPN category. Secure, high-performance reverse proxy for NAT traversal written in Rust. The source code lives at github.com/rathole-org/rathole, where it has 14,296 stars.
Is Rathole free and open source?
Yes. Rathole is open-source software released under the Apache-2.0 license, so you can self-host it at no cost. You only pay for the server it runs on, and some projects also offer an optional paid cloud plan.
Can I run Rathole with Docker?
Yes. Rathole provides a Docker image, so you can run it on any Linux server with Docker and Docker Compose installed. The project README lists the image name and the environment variables to set.
What are the best alternatives to Rathole?
Popular open-source alternatives to Rathole include frp, Headscale and NetBird. Rathole itself is a self-hosted alternative to ngrok.
Is Rathole actively maintained?
The most recent commit to Rathole was on Aug 23, 2026 with 1 commits in the past twelve months. The latest release is v0.5.0, published Oct 1, 2023. Check the open issues on GitHub to gauge how quickly maintainers respond.