head to head · open source
oauth2-proxy vs pgrok
oauth2-proxy has 15,371 GitHub stars, 2,267 forks, 285 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. pgrok has 3,645 stars, 134 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped today. oauth2-proxy leads on adoption by 322% (15,371 vs 3,645 stars). oauth2-proxy is written in Go under MIT; pgrok is written in Go under MIT. oauth2-proxy has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, pgrok 4%. pgrok was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (oidc, sso), 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
| oauth2-proxy | pgrok | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 3.6K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-08 | 2026-11-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 134 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick oauth2-proxy if
- You weight community size — 15K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick pgrok if
- You want the pgrok feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and pgrok fits your workflow better
About oauth2-proxy
OAuth2 Proxy is a flexible, open source tool that can act as either a standalone reverse proxy or a middleware component integrated into existing reverse proxy or load balancer setups. It provides a simple and secure way to protect your web applications with OAuth2 / OIDC authentication. As a reverse proxy, it intercepts requests to your application and redirects users to an OAuth2 provider for authentication. As a middleware, it can be seamlessly integrated into your existing infrastructure to handle authentication for multiple applications. OAuth2 Proxy supports a lot of OAuth2 as well as OIDC providers…
read the full oauth2-proxy overview →
About pgrok
Programmable Networking What? pgrok is a self hosted, multi tenant networking platform for exposing HTTP services and raw TCP connections through SSH reverse tunnels. Run it on your own infrastructure with your own domain and OIDC compatible SSO provider. Users sign in through your team's SSO to obtain their tunnel credentials and stable HTTP subdomains. Use the pgrok CLI to create tunnels, choose predictable subdomains, and route HTTP requests to different local services by path—or connect with a standard SSH client. Why? Stable subdomains and SSO are two things too expensive. Why not just pick one from the…
read the full pgrok overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is oauth2-proxy or pgrok more popular?
oauth2-proxy has 15,371 GitHub stars and pgrok has 3,645. oauth2-proxy has the larger community by that measure.
Are oauth2-proxy and pgrok free?
Both are open source. oauth2-proxy is licensed under MIT and pgrok under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between oauth2-proxy and pgrok?
oauth2-proxy is written in Go and pgrok 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, oauth2-proxy or pgrok?
Choose oauth2-proxy if you want the larger community (15,371 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose pgrok if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.