# andydunstall/piko

An open-source alternative to Ngrok, designed to serve production traffic and be simple to host (particularly on Kubernetes)

Repository: https://github.com/andydunstall/piko
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/andydunstall-piko
Language: Go
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: golang, http, reverse-proxy, http-proxy, tunneling
Last push: 2026-08-24T04:06:17+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 86/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 83, longevity 64
- inputs: {"age_days": 897, "days_push": 9, "days_rel": 117, "gap_med": 27, "n_releases_24m": 10}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 2185, forks 87 (observed 2026-08-28T04:06:23.613017+00:00)

## What it is
Piko is an open-source reverse proxy for tunneling traffic to services that are not publicly routable, serving as a self-hosted alternative to Ngrok. Upstream services open outbound-only connections to a Piko cluster, which forwards incoming HTTP(S) and TCP traffic over those tunnels with load balancing and fault tolerance.

## Use cases
- expose a local development server to the internet
- self-host an ngrok alternative on Kubernetes
- connect to services inside a customer network without inbound ports
- build a bring-your-own-cloud (BYOC) service that reaches customer deployments
- tunnel TCP traffic to devices behind NAT
- load balance traffic across multiple upstream listeners on the same endpoint

## When to choose
- you need production-grade tunneling with clustering, horizontal scaling, and zero-downtime deployments
- you want to self-host tunnels on Kubernetes behind an HTTP(S) load balancer
- your upstream services have no public route but can make outbound connections
- you need both HTTP and TCP tunneling with a Go SDK or CLI agent

## When to avoid
- you only need a quick temporary tunnel for local testing and prefer a hosted service with zero setup
- you need features like built-in authentication portals, request inspection UI, or paid-tier capabilities offered by Ngrok
- you want a simple single-node reverse proxy with static routing rules rather than outbound tunnel connections

## Facets
- artifact type: service
- maturity: active
- function: proxy, networking, http-server, routing, self-hosted
- domain: networking, backend, self-hosted, infrastructure-as-code
- platform: windows, go, cli, self-hosted
- tags: tunneling, reverse-proxy, ngrok-alternative, tcp-proxy, http-proxy, kubernetes, devops, linux, macos, docker

## Member repositories
- andydunstall/piko (main) score 86

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:23.613017+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T02:48:10.968864+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/andydunstall/piko (fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:23.613017+00:00, sha 92379a7a873f)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.