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Cloudflare Tunnel: Pricing, Features & Alternatives

Cloudflare Tunnel runs a small daemon, cloudflared, that opens outbound connections to Cloudflare; traffic for your hostname comes in through Cloudflare’s network, with its CDN, WAF and Access login in front, and no inbound port is ever opened. Named tunnels are free and need a domain using Cloudflare DNS. Quick Tunnels (cloudflared tunnel --url) need no account and give a random trycloudflare.com URL, but they have no uptime guarantee, cap at 200 in-flight requests and do not support server-sent events, so they are for testing only. It lacks ngrok’s request inspector and replay.

Category

Localhost Tunnels

Pricing

Free tier available

Free tier

Yes

Best for

Localhost Tunnels — tunnels, zero-trust

Cloudflare Tunnel Pricing Plans (2026)

PlanPrice
FreePopular$0

Pricing summary: Free. Always confirm current pricing on the official site.

Key Cloudflare Tunnel Features

  • Unlimited named tunnels
  • Requires a domain on Cloudflare DNS
  • Quick Tunnels with no account

Pros

  • +Free with no bandwidth meter
  • +No inbound ports, with Cloudflare security in front
  • +Fine for long-running production services

Cons

  • −Named tunnels need your domain on Cloudflare
  • −No request inspector or replay for debugging
  • −Quick Tunnels are testing-only (no SLA, no SSE)

Best Cloudflare Tunnel Alternatives

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Cloudflare Tunnel Compared

Cloudflare Tunnel FAQ

What is Cloudflare Tunnel used for?⌄

Cloudflare Tunnel is a localhost tunnels tool. Free outbound-only tunnel from your server or laptop to Cloudflare, so a service gets a public hostname without opening a port.

Is Cloudflare Tunnel free?⌄

Yes — Cloudflare Tunnel has a free tier you can start with, and paid plans for more usage and features.

How much does Cloudflare Tunnel cost?⌄

Cloudflare Tunnel is free to use.

What are the best Cloudflare Tunnel alternatives?⌄

Popular Cloudflare Tunnel alternatives include ngrok, Pinggy, zrok. Compare pricing and features on our Cloudflare Tunnel alternatives page.

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