ngrok cut its free tier hard in February 2026 — down to 1 GB of bandwidth, two-hour session limits, and an interstitial warning page in front of everything you tunnel. That single change is why a lot of developers went looking for alternatives, and there are two good ones that cost nothing.
| Free tier | Paid | |
|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare Tunnel | free for up to 50 users (part of Zero Trust) | $7/user/mo beyond that |
| Tailscale Funnel | Personal: up to 6 users, unlimited devices (Funnel in beta) | Standard $8/user, Premium $18/user |
| ngrok | 1 GB bandwidth, 2-hour sessions, interstitial page | Pro $20/mo |
Cloudflare Tunnel is the strongest free option now: no session timeouts, no bandwidth cap that matters for dev use, no warning page, and it's free for up to 50 users as part of Cloudflare Zero Trust. The trade-off is setup — it's a bit more configuration than a one-line "ngrok http 3000", and you need a domain on Cloudflare.
Tailscale Funnel exposes a service from inside your tailnet to the public internet, and the Personal tier covers up to six users for free. It's still in beta, and since April 2026 the paid Standard and Premium tiers bill per assigned seat rather than per active user — so unused seats still count on the invoice, worth knowing before you provision a team.
ngrok Pro at $20/month still buys the nicest developer experience — one command, reserved domains, request inspection — and for a solo developer who tunnels constantly, that convenience is arguably worth it. But for occasional use, or a team, the free path is now clearly Cloudflare Tunnel, with Tailscale Funnel as the option if your machines are already on a tailnet.