localtunnel

Health v2 · maintenance only

Flags: no_releases

Adoption not part of the score

22457 stars · 1564 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded

localtunnel is a Node.js tool that exposes a locally running web server to the internet via a public URL that proxies requests to your localhost. It ships as a CLI (`lt`) and a JavaScript client library for programmatic use in tests and automation.

Use cases

• expose my localhost to the internet for testing
• share a local dev server with a teammate via a public url
• test webhooks from services like twilio against my local machine
• test my ui in cloud browsers that need a public url
• get a temporary https url for my local http server
• programmatically create tunnels in automated tests

When to choose

• you need a quick public url for a local web server without DNS or firewall changes
• you want webhook callbacks from external services to reach your dev machine
• you want a lightweight npm-installable tunnel with a JS API for test automation

When to avoid

• you need production-grade tunnels with custom domains, auth, or SLAs
• you are tunneling sensitive traffic and cannot trust a third-party proxy server
• you need self-hosted tunneling at scale with access controls

Facets

cli-tool · maturity active

proxy http-server cli developer-tools webhook developer-tools web-development networking cli cross-platform windows tunneling localhost ngrok-alternative public-url port-forwarding command-line nodejs macos linux

Member repositories

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="localtunnel/localtunnel")