# rathole-org/rathole

A lightweight and high-performance reverse proxy for NAT traversal, written in Rust. An alternative to frp and ngrok.

Repository: https://github.com/rathole-org/rathole
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/rathole
Language: Rust
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: nat, tunnel, rust, network, firewall, frp, http, proxy, noise, noise-protocol, ngrok
Last push: 2026-08-23T15:38:44+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 86/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 60, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 1723, "days_push": 10, "days_rel": 11, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 1}
- flags: prerelease_only
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 14067, forks 813 (observed 2026-08-28T04:11:05.427249+00:00)

## What it is
rathole is a lightweight, high-performance reverse proxy for NAT traversal written in Rust, exposing services behind NAT to the internet via a server with a public IP. It serves as a secure, low-resource alternative to frp and ngrok with mandatory tokens and optional Noise Protocol or TLS encryption.

## Use cases
- expose a home server behind NAT to the internet
- self-hosted ngrok alternative for tunneling
- tunnel SSH or web services through a public VPS
- run tunnels on low-resource embedded devices like routers
- securely forward ports without a self-signed certificate
- replace frp with a faster, lighter reverse proxy

## When to choose
- you need NAT traversal with a self-hosted public server
- you want lower memory and higher throughput than frp
- you need encrypted tunnels via Noise Protocol or TLS without certificate management
- you run on embedded or resource-constrained devices

## When to avoid
- you need a managed service with zero server setup (use ngrok)
- you need a full HTTP reverse proxy with routing features (use nginx or Caddy)
- you need a mesh VPN rather than port forwarding (use Tailscale or WireGuard)

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: stable
- function: proxy, networking, security, cryptography
- domain: networking, self-hosted, developer-tools, security
- platform: windows, cross-platform, rust, embedded
- tags: nat-traversal, reverse-proxy, tunnel, frp-alternative, ngrok-alternative, noise-protocol, self-hosted-tunneling, linux, macos, docker

## Member repositories
- rathole-org/rathole (main) score 86

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:05.427249+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 2026-08-29T17:12:50.327998+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/rathole-org/rathole (fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:05.427249+00:00, sha 176647af9e3f)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.