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An ngrok alternative for showing a dev server to a person
ngrok is the established ingress platform for exposing a local port to the public internet, with its own agent, custom domains, traffic policy and auth in front of an endpoint.
Updated
For webhooks, machine callers or anything that has to reach your machine unauthenticated, ngrok is the right tool and Forkbench is not a substitute. Forkbench replaces it for one case: showing a dev server running on your Mac to a named person. A Live Link needs no account, client or authtoken, shows no interstitial, and only signed-in members of that Thread can open it.
These are not the same kind of thing, and the comparison is only useful once that is said. ngrok is general-purpose ingress: it exists so that anything on the internet, machines included, can reach a port on your machine. Live Link exists for a narrower job that most people actually reach for ngrok to do — letting a specific person look at a dev server that is running right now. If your job is the first one, use ngrok. If it is the second, the tunnel is more machinery than the task needs and its access model is the wrong shape.
| Forkbench | ngrok | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is for | Showing a running dev server to a named person | General ingress from the internet to a local port |
| Who can open the address | Signed-in members of the Thread, checked every visit | Anyone with the address, unless you configure auth in front of it |
| Webhooks and machine callers | No — a machine cannot sign in | Yes, a primary use case |
| Setup | Pick a port in the Thread | Install the agent, sign up, add an authtoken, run a command |
| Interstitial before your app | Never | Listed on the free plan for HTTP/S endpoints |
| Protocols | HTTP/S to one local port | HTTP/S, TCP, TLS |
| Custom domain | No, a random hostname per link | Yes, on paid plans |
| Lifetime | Expires on its own; revocable at any moment | Until you stop the agent |
| Platform | macOS 13+ | macOS, Linux, Windows, containers, CI |
| Price | Included, free plan onward; Pro €30/mo raises the limits | Free tier with endpoint, bandwidth and request caps; paid from $10/mo |
Where ngrok is strong
- It is general purpose. Webhooks, TCP and TLS endpoints, gRPC, machine clients — all things a Live Link deliberately refuses.
- Custom and reserved domains, traffic policy, IP restrictions, mutual TLS, and OAuth or basic auth in front of an endpoint.
- Cross-platform and CI-friendly: it runs anywhere you can run a binary, not just on a Mac.
- A decade of documentation, integrations and answers to whatever you are about to hit.
Where Forkbench differs
- Nothing to sign up for or install: no second account, no agent binary, no authtoken, no config file. Forkbench is already running on the Mac serving the port, so opening a link is choosing the port.
- Access is the Thread's membership. Only people signed in to Forkbench and active on that board can open it, checked before the request reaches your Mac — rather than an unguessable address, which is a secret pasted into chat logs, not access control.
- No interstitial. ngrok's free plan lists an interstitial page on HTTP/S endpoints; a visitor to a Live Link lands on your app.
- Free to be shown something. The person you invite opens the link on a free account with no card; the plan applies to whoever opened the link.
- It expires on its own and can be revoked mid-session, so a share does not quietly become hosting.
- It sits next to the work: the link is opened from the Thread that holds that job's folder, notes, keys and board, and everyone on the board can see it is open.
The bottom line
Keep ngrok. Almost everyone who has it has it for something Live Link will refuse to do, and the day you need to point a webhook at your laptop you will want it back. What Live Link takes off it is the errand that made most people install it in the first place: somebody needs to look at the thing you are building, now, on a phone, and neither of you wants to deploy it or hand the open internet an address. That errand happens several times a day when agents are doing the building, which is why it stopped being worth a separate product and became part of the app the work already lives in.
ngrok questions
Is Forkbench a drop-in ngrok replacement?
No, and it is worth being blunt about it. Live Link only serves people who are signed in to Forkbench and are members of the Thread the link came from, so anything that cannot sign in — a Stripe or GitHub webhook, a CLI client, a headless test — is refused. If that is your use case, keep ngrok. Forkbench replaces it only for showing a running app to a person.
Does a Live Link show the interstitial warning page ngrok's free plan shows?
No. ngrok lists an interstitial page on HTTP/S endpoints as part of its free plan; the person you send a link to sees that before your app. A Live Link has no interstitial. A visitor who is a member of the Thread lands on your app, and one who is not gets a short denial page instead of reaching your Mac at all.
Is it cheaper than ngrok?
It is not billed separately at all. Live Link comes with Forkbench, including the free account, because it is a feature of the app you are already running your agents in rather than a product with its own subscription. ngrok's cheapest paid tier is $10 a month at the time of writing, and its free tier caps endpoints, bandwidth and requests.
How do I share a dev server without making it public?
That is what the membership check is for. Invite the person to the Thread and send them the link; they can open it on a free Forkbench account. With a general tunnel the equivalent is configuring OAuth or basic auth in front of the endpoint, which ngrok does support — the difference is that here the access list is the board membership you were already managing.
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Comparison based on publicly available information, checked on the date above. Spot something out of date? Tell us.