Connect to customer services without a VPN.

Self-hosted HTTP and TCP tunnels with full control and privacy. Expose endpoints publicly, or tunnel customer services back to your SaaS.

Webhooks and previews Ingress to local Kubernetes Customer on-prem Edge devices Hybrid cloud Multi-cluster ArgoCD

Request a demo

View pricing

Create your first tunnel with Alex

Workflows inlets supports

Self-hosted tunnels for webhooks, hybrid cloud, local Kubernetes and customer connectivity.

Connect only what matters.

inlets exposes HTTP and TCP services without dragging whole subnets, hosts or teams into a VPN.

Your tunnels are secured by default so anything that you transfer over them is encrypted. And they'll work through the toughest network conditions such as NAT, firewalls and corporate proxies.

It was built for the cloud, which means it works well on bare-metal, in a container, on Kubernetes and has built-in support for Prometheus metrics, so you can monitor and measure your tunnels.

Connect to your customers with inlets uplink ™

Connect hundreds or thousands of private customer networks or devices to your SaaS, via internal services in your cluster.
Manage Kubernetes clusters centrally with ArgoCD

Connect private clusters and deploy applications from a central control plane without opening inbound access.
No sweat webhooks

Not only can you share websites, blog posts drafts and APIs without publishing them on public cloud, but you can integrate directly with webhooks from Stripe, GitHub and Slack.
Save on cloud spend

Make the most of your existing hardware investment, by bringing real traffic to your local machines.
Hybrid cloud, without the hassle

Connect legacy applications, GPUs or private test environments to your public cloud account.
Your own Kubernetes cloud

Get a cloud LoadBalancer for your local self-hosted Kubernetes cluster.

Two ways to use inlets

Pick the one that matches your use case.

Category	inlets Pro	Uplink
Best for	Webhooks, previews, homelabs	Connect to customers, hybrid cloud, service providers
Server	Tunnel server hosted in a public cloud VM	Your own Kubernetes cluster
Client	Windows, macOS, Linux, containers, Kubernetes	Windows, macOS, Linux, containers, Kubernetes
Scale	Small numbers of tunnels	10+ tunnels, scales to thousands
Endpoints	Public or private	Private by default
Multi-tenant	No	Yes
Management	Manual / self-service	Managed control plane
Provisioning	CLI	Tunnel CLI, REST API, Kubernetes Custom Resource
Starting price	25 USD / mo per tunnel	250 USD / mo, includes 10 tunnels

Read the inlets Pro docs or the Uplink docs.

Trusted by teams shipping real traffic

Developers use inlets for previews, webhooks and local clusters. SaaS teams use it to reach private customer environments without another VPN project.

Flatfile

Robert Trencheny

"We're using inlets Pro to power our staging environments and give people preview build URLs. It's going great!"

Riskfuel

Addison van den Hoeven

"Riskfuel is using inlets to train machine learning models with millions of data points for clients over secure tunnels."

Cloodot

Haris

"We use inlets instead of Ngrok while developing with webhooks for our live chat product."

VSHN

Tobias Brunner

"Our customers' VPCs do not allow any incoming connections, so we use inlets to connect their OpenShift clusters to our product."

Banzai Cloud

Janos Matyas

"We can test our code locally without rebuilding and redeploying it for every change."

Sixgill

Jordan Gregory

"inlets Pro makes it easy for us to provide secure service and support of our Sense AI Platform deployed through cloud marketplaces."

Key use cases

A few practical examples covering customer connectivity, securing exposed services, and private Kubernetes access.

SaaS

Quickstart: automate and scale tunnels with Inlets Uplink

A practical guide for the multi-tenant Uplink model: namespaces, APIs, private services and controlled customer connectivity.

Security

Secure HTTP tunnels with OAuth

Protect demos, preview environments and internal tools with GitHub OAuth, basic auth, bearer tokens and IP allow lists.

Kubernetes

Expose ArgoCD on the Internet with Inlets and Istio

A concrete walkthrough for exposing private cluster services safely with Kubernetes-native tooling and real ingress patterns.

How it works

Explore common setups for Uplink, HTTPS, TCP and Kubernetes.

uplink.example.com

Connect a customer environment to your SaaS

Create a tenant-scoped tunnel, hand the customer a command, then consume the service privately from inside your cluster.

# tunnel resource
apiVersion: uplink.inlets.dev/v1alpha1
kind: Tunnel
metadata:
  name: acmeco
  namespace: tunnels
spec:
  tcpPorts:
    - 8080

# customer connects to the router
inlets-pro uplink client \
  --url wss://uplink.example.com/tunnels/acmeco \
  --upstream http://127.0.0.1:8080 \
  --token-file ./token.txt

# private access from inside the cluster
kubectl run -t -i curl --rm \
  --image ghcr.io/openfaas/curl:latest /bin/sh

curl -i http://acmeco.tunnels:8000

Read the Uplink docs →

api.example.com

Self-host HTTPS for a local app

Provision a public tunnel server with inletsctl, then connect your local HTTP service using your own domain.

$ inletsctl create \
  --provider digitalocean \
  --region lon1 \
  --access-token-file ~/digital-ocean-api-key.txt \
  --letsencrypt-domain api.example.com

$ inlets-pro http client \
  --url wss://178.62.70.130:8123 \
  --token-file ./token.txt \
  --upstream "api.example.com=http://127.0.0.1:3000"

$ curl "https://api.example.com/v1/import"

HTTP tunnel guide →

178.62.70.130

Expose multiple TCP ports without SaaS tunnel limits

Provision a TCP tunnel VM with inletsctl, then connect local services such as webhooks or SSH over the same tunnel.

$ inletsctl create \
  --provider digitalocean \
  --region lon1 \
  --access-token-file ~/digital-ocean-api-key.txt \
  --tcp

$ inlets-pro tcp client --url wss://178.62.70.130:8123 \
  --token-file ./token.txt \
  --upstream "192.168.0.35" \
  --ports "8080,2222"

$ curl "http://178.62.70.130:8080/function/webhook"
$ ssh -p 2222 "pi@178.62.70.130"

TCP use-case →

kubernetes / loadbalancer

Expose a local Kubernetes service

Install the inlets-operator Helm chart, then create a LoadBalancer service and wait for a public IP.

# Install the inlets-operator Helm chart, then:
$ kubectl run nginx-1 --image=nginx --port=80 --restart=Always
$ kubectl expose pod/nginx-1 --port=80 --type=LoadBalancer

$ kubectl get services -w
NAME              TYPE           CLUSTER-IP         EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)   AGE
service/nginx-1   LoadBalancer   192.168.226.216         80/TCP    78s
service/nginx-1   LoadBalancer   192.168.226.216    104.248.163.242   80/TCP    78s

$ curl -s "http://104.248.163.242:80/"

inlets-operator →

Frequently asked questions

Short answers for the two most common paths: self-hosted tunnels with Pro, or multi-tenant customer connectivity with Uplink.

What is inlets Uplink?

A Kubernetes-native management layer for teams that need to connect private customer services or devices to their SaaS. It is built for multi-tenant operations, internal access patterns and automation.

Is there a free trial?

Inlets and Inlets Uplink are available on a monthly basis, with no commitment. Pay for 30 days, and if it does not click, you can walk away. Your subscription includes support via email.

What is the difference between inlets Pro and Uplink?

inlets Pro is self-hosted software for developers and smaller teams. Uplink is the managed control layer for SaaS and service providers that need repeatable customer connectivity.

Do I have to expose my applications on the Internet?

No. You can expose a service publicly, or bind privately so that only the control plane connects out. Uplink is specifically designed for private access patterns inside your own cluster.

How does inlets compare to Ngrok, WireGuard and Tailscale?

inlets focuses on exposing specific services, self-hosting the data plane, and avoiding SaaS tunnel limits. Read the full FAQ and comparison for the detailed trade-offs.

Is inlets open source?

inlets Pro has a commercial license. inlets-operator and inletsctl are MIT licensed.

Does inlets Pro call home?

The stand-alone version does not include a call-home mechanism. Uplink reports tunnel totals so teams can manage shared infrastructure.

Where can I run it?

inlets works anywhere the client can make an outbound connection first, including NAT, CGNAT, VPCs, containers, Kubernetes and restrictive WiFi networks.

Get Started

Start with inlets Pro. Talk to us when you need Uplink.

Self-hosted tunnels for development and infrastructure. A Kubernetes-native control plane for private customer connectivity.

View pricing Compare Pro and Uplink plans Contact us Talk about Uplink or managed setup

Connect to customer services without a VPN. Connect to customer services without a VPN.

Workflows inlets supports

Connect only what matters.

Connect to your customers with inlets uplink ™

Manage Kubernetes clusters centrally with ArgoCD

No sweat webhooks

Save on cloud spend

Hybrid cloud, without the hassle

Your own Kubernetes cloud