rustunnel vs FRP — A Managed-Cloud frp Alternative Built in Rust

Short answer: if you already love frp's self-hosted model but wish someone else operated the relay for you when you don't feel like babysitting a VPS, rustunnel is the managed-cloud frp alternative you've been looking for — same open-source self-hosting story, plus a pay-as-you-go cloud that costs $0 when your tunnels are idle.

frp is one of the most popular open-source reverse proxy tools for exposing local servers behind NATs and firewalls. With over 100k GitHub stars, a Go codebase, and support for TCP, UDP, HTTP, HTTPS, and P2P connections, it's a default choice for developers who want full control over their tunnel infrastructure.

But frp is purely self-hosted — you need to provision a server, manage configuration files, handle TLS certificates, and maintain the infrastructure yourself. rustunnel takes a different approach: it offers the same open-source self-hosting option, but also provides a managed cloud service where you pay only for the bandwidth you use. And as of rustunnel 0.5, the protocol surfaces have effectively converged — UDP, P2P (direct + relayed), and Prometheus metrics now ship in the open-source server too.

Here's how the two compare — and why the managed vs self-hosted distinction matters more than you might think.

The Core Difference: Managed Cloud vs Pure Self-Host

This isn't just a pricing distinction — it's an operational one. With frp, you are the operator. You provision the VPS, you run the frps binary, you configure frpc on every client, you manage TLS certificates, and you handle downtime. There is no managed option.

rustunnel gives you a choice: use the managed cloud at rustunnel.com and skip infrastructure entirely, or deploy the open-source server on your own VPS. The same client binary works with both.

The operational overhead of self-hosting frp is often underestimated. Beyond the initial setup, you're responsible for OS patches, certificate renewals, DNS propagation, server monitoring, and failover. For a single developer this is manageable. For a team, it becomes an operational burden that distracts from building product.

Feature Comparison

The protocol gap that used to define this comparison has largely closed. rustunnel ships UDP forwarding, P2P (direct via QUIC + STUN/NAT hole punching, with relayed fallback), Prometheus metrics, and group-based load balancing with built-in TCP/HTTP health checks out of the box. Where frp still has a real edge is in its maturity — 100k+ stars, years of production hardening — and in its richer per-proxy plugin / config system.

rustunnel has narrowed the gap considerably. UDP, P2P (direct + relayed), Prometheus metrics, and group-based load balancing across multiple backends with built-in TCP and HTTP health checks all ship in the open-source server (the load-balancing piece arrived in 0.7.0 — modeled on frp's loadBalancer.group / healthCheck config). Multiple-backend setups now work the same way they do on frp: register two clients with the same (group, group_key) and inbound connections are dispatched at random across healthy members.

For the rest, rustunnel focuses on doing HTTP, TCP, and WebSocket tunneling exceptionally well, with a managed cloud option that eliminates operational overhead entirely.

Pricing: What Self-Hosting Really Costs

frp is free software, but "free" doesn't mean zero cost. Running a frp server requires a VPS with a public IP. Here's what that actually looks like:

The managed rustunnel service at $3/month minimum (covering 30 GB of bandwidth) is competitive with the VPS cost alone — and you get automatic TLS, multi-region routing, a web dashboard, API key management, and billing with spend caps included. No server to patch, no certificates to renew, no monitoring to configure.

For self-hosters: If you already have a VPS or need full control, both frp and rustunnel's self-hosted option are free. The difference is in developer experience — rustunnel's self-hosted server uses a single init command with automatic Let's Encrypt, while frp requires more manual configuration.

Architecture Comparison

Both tools use a client-server architecture with a control connection and data forwarding, but the implementations differ significantly.

The key architectural difference: frp opens separate TCP connections for each proxy between frpc and frps, while rustunnel multiplexes all tunnel traffic over a single WebSocket connection. For a handful of tunnels this doesn't matter much. At scale — or on metered connections — the multiplexing advantage becomes tangible.

Configuration: Config Files vs CLI

frp's configuration model is file-based. You write TOML, YAML, or JSON configs for both the server and client, defining each proxy as a separate block. This gives you fine-grained control but adds setup friction.

# frpc.toml
serverAddr = "x.x.x.x"
serverPort = 7000
 
[[proxies]]
name = "web"
type = "http"
localPort = 8080
customDomains = ["app.example.com"]
 
[[proxies]]
name = "api"
type = "tcp"
localPort = 3000
remotePort = 6000

rustunnel's managed mode skips config files entirely. You use the CLI:

rustunnel http 3000
# → https://random-subdomain.eu.edge.rustunnel.com
 
rustunnel tcp 5432
# → tcp://eu.edge.rustunnel.com:XXXXX
 
rustunnel udp 27015
# → udp://eu.edge.rustunnel.com:XXXXX
 
# P2P (publisher / subscriber) — server is rendezvous only, bytes flow peer-to-peer
rustunnel p2p 5432 --secret <shared-secret> --name my-db
rustunnel p2p 5432 --secret <shared-secret> --target my-db

The self-hosted rustunnel server does use a config file (~/.rustunnel/config.yml), but the client experience remains the same — one command per tunnel, or rustunnel start to launch all configured tunnels.

When to Use frp

frp is the better choice when:

• You already have a VPS and prefer full manual control over every aspect
• You're building infrastructure where the tunnel server is one component in a larger system, and the config-file model fits how you already manage state
• You need a plugin / middleware system for request transformation and filtering — frp has a richer plugin API than rustunnel today
• You want a battle-tested, large-ecosystem project (100k+ stars, years of production deployments)

For deeply config-driven setups where the tunnel server slots into a larger fleet, frp's depth still pays off. For most modern use cases — exposing local services, running redundant backends behind one subdomain, or letting AI agents spin tunnels up and down — rustunnel now covers the same ground with a managed cloud option.

When to Use rustunnel

rustunnel is the better choice when:

• You want a managed cloud option — no server to provision, no certificates to manage
• You prefer pay-as-you-go billing over flat monthly VPS costs
• You need automatic TLS and subdomain provisioning out of the box
• You want multi-region routing without running servers in multiple data centers
• You need HTTP, TCP, UDP, and P2P (direct or relayed) from a single CLI without juggling per-proxy config blocks
• You're working with AI agents (MCP, Claude Code, OpenClaw)
• You want the option to self-host later without changing tools

The managed cloud option is the killer feature. If your time is worth more than $5/month — and it almost certainly is — rustunnel's managed service eliminates an entire class of operational work.

Getting Started

Install rustunnel and create your first tunnel in under a minute:

brew tap joaoh82/rustunnel
brew install rustunnel
rustunnel setup
rustunnel http 3000

The Hobby plan is free (2 tunnels, random subdomains). The pay-as-you-go plan starts at $3/month. Or deploy the self-hosted server on your own infrastructure — it's free forever.

# Self-host on any VPS
curl -fsSL https://install.rustunnel.dev | sh
rustunnel-server init --domain tunnel.yourdomain.com
rustunnel-server start --tls --email admin@yourdomain.com

For specifics, see the load-balancing & health-check reference (the closest analogue to frp's loadBalancer.group config), the P2P tunnel docs for direct-mode hole punching, and the self-hosting guide for the open-source server. The source code is on GitHub under AGPL.

→ Curious how it stacks against ngrok too? Read rustunnel — The Open-Source ngrok Alternative. Or create a free account and try the managed cloud.