mole-route.io

What It Is

mole route is a temporary public publishing service for local environments provided by RHEMS Japan in Japan. It is positioned similarly to intranet tunneling or developer tunnel tools. It issues temporary URLs for web services or file directories running on PCs or servers inside a LAN, allowing external access over the internet and reducing the repeated cycle of “local development → upload to a test server → verify again.”

Core Features and Ecosystem

Its main capabilities include temporary URL publishing, locally saved connection-target Profiles, file server mode, HTTPS/HTTP access, and, on higher-tier plans, fixed subdomains, Basic authentication, IP-based access restrictions, custom domains, and dedicated servers. The FAQ indicates that the CLI and GUI have the same functionality, making it suitable for servers or GUI-less environments. Use cases include Nuxt.js SSR testing, local receipt of Webhooks/APIs, Raspberry Pi remote support, and VNC/SSH port forwarding. The enterprise offering also mentions non-Kubernetes environments, gRPC, gRPC TLS, and daemon connections, with gRPC support limited to AWS environments. The materials do not state whether an open API/SDK is available, nor whether the product is open source.

Pricing and Security

Pricing is divided into four tiers: free mole is free; public mole is listed at ¥500/month, but was free as an open beta at the time of crawling; cloud mole and enterprise mole require a quote. Paid plans have a minimum term of 1 month, renew automatically on a monthly basis, and are non-refundable. Payments support Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and JCB via Stripe. On the security side, communication uses SSL, public pages support HTTPS, and paid plans can use Basic authentication and source-IP allowlisting. The service states that it does not store data from public pages.

Pros and Cons

The advantages are that its purpose is clear and easy to get started with, and it can significantly reduce the cost of maintaining test servers, configuring SSL, deploying via CI, and transferring large files. The free tier is suitable for trials, and the public tier would still offer good value at ¥500/month. Having both CLI and GUI options also broadens its range of use cases. The limitations are that the free tier lacks fixed subdomains and access controls, and non-enterprise connections are disconnected once within 24 hours according to the specifications. Public information is also limited regarding cloud/enterprise pricing, SLA, deployment boundaries, and support levels.

Who It’s For and Access from China

It is suitable for web frontend and backend developers, game developers, Webhook/API workflows, IoT projects, freelance developers, and creator teams that need to temporarily show local work to clients. The materials do not provide information about access from mainland China, and payments depend on international credit cards/Stripe, so enterprises should test network connectivity and payment feasibility before procurement. Alternatives to compare include ngrok, Cloudflare Tunnel, localtunnel, FRP, and Tailscale Funnel.