head to head · open source
frp vs cloudflared
frp has 110,449 GitHub stars, 15,304 forks, 48 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. cloudflared has 16,443 stars, 1,518 forks, 545 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. frp leads on adoption by 572% (110,449 vs 16,443 stars). frp is written in Go under Apache-2.0; cloudflared is written in Go under Apache-2.0. frp has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, cloudflared 9%. cloudflared was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (reverse-proxy), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| frp | cloudflared | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 110K | ★ 16K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick frp if
- You weight community size — 110K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick cloudflared if
- You want the cloudflared feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and cloudflared fits your workflow better
About frp
frp README 中文文档 Sponsors frp is an open source project with its ongoing development made possible entirely by the support of our awesome sponsors. If you'd like to join them, please consider sponsoring frp's development. Gold Sponsors High performance residential and ISP proxies for developers 90M+ residential IPs worldwide. Rotating IPs, sticky sessions, and traffic that never expires. From $0.55/GB. Use RAPID10 for 10% off. Try it for free. The complete IDE crafted for professional Go developers The sovereign cloud that puts you in control An open source, self hosted alternative to public clouds, built for…
About cloudflared
Cloudflare Tunnel client Contains the command line client for Cloudflare Tunnel, a tunneling daemon that proxies traffic from the Cloudflare network to your origins. This daemon sits between Cloudflare network and your origin (e.g. a webserver). Cloudflare attracts client requests and sends them to you via this daemon, without requiring you to poke holes on your firewall your origin can remain as closed as possible. Extensive documentation can be found in the Cloudflare Tunnel section of the Cloudflare Docs. All usages related with proxying to your origins are available under cloudflared tunnel help . You can…
read the full cloudflared overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is frp or cloudflared more popular?
frp has 110,449 GitHub stars and cloudflared has 16,443. frp has the larger community by that measure.
Are frp and cloudflared free?
Both are open source. frp is licensed under Apache-2.0 and cloudflared under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between frp and cloudflared?
frp is written in Go and cloudflared in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, frp or cloudflared?
Choose frp if you want the larger community (110,449 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose cloudflared if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.