this post was submitted on 21 May 2026
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So you don't want to port-forward on your home router or have Cloudflare decrypt all your traffic? Check out Towonel.

Most open source Cloudflare Tunnel alternatives involve setting up a VPS, terminating TLS there on a reverse proxy, then setting up a Wireguard tunnel to your server at home.

Towonel is different: it does not decrypt your traffic on the VPS and you can easily share one, so not every self-hoster has to buy and maintain a VPS.

Check it out!

Mastodon link: https://gts.erwanleboucher.dev/@eleboucher/statuses/01KS4YNA2SYMSP0FSKJVNJA155

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[–] fhoekstra@feddit.nl 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Very similar.

The main differences are that those projects are highly configurable and can do a lot of things, while towonel is simpler: opinionated/streamlined for use as a shared Cloudflare tunnel alternative. I also think towonel may be the only one to use QUIC for the tunnel, just like Cloudflare.

Besides that, towonel is very new and still in alpha. Rathole does not seem to be actively developed anymore, which can be a good or bad thing.