inlets is a cloud-native tunneling tool developed by OpenFaaS Ltd, positioned as a way to โconnect to customer services without a VPN.โ It supports self-hosted HTTP and TCP tunnels, allowing you to expose local services, private networks, Kubernetes clusters, or customer on-prem services as public endpoints, or privately connect into SaaS clusters. Unlike a VPN, which connects an entire network segment, inlets focuses on connecting only the specific services you need, using encrypted tunnels that work across NAT, firewalls, and corporate proxies.
In terms of functionality, inlets covers use cases such as webhooks, local previews, SSH, databases, the Kubernetes API, Ingress, private-cluster management for ArgoCD, edge devices, and hybrid cloud access. Protocol support includes HTTP, REST, gRPC, WebSockets, SSE, as well as TCP-based TLS, databases, RTSP, SSH, Kubernetes, and more. The client can run on Windows, macOS, Linux, containers, and Kubernetes.
Cloud-native integration is a major focus: inlets-operator can create tunnels for Kubernetes LoadBalancer services, while Uplink uses CRDs, namespaces, IAM, and network policies to enable multi-tenant customer connectivity. It also includes built-in Prometheus metrics and supports GitHub/Google OAuth plus IP whitelisting/ACLs, making it suitable for teams with access-control requirements.
inlets Pro uses a commercial license and is not fully open source; however, inlets-operator and inletsctl are licensed under MIT. Its core advantage is that the data plane is self-hosted: the Pro tunnel server is deployed on the userโs own cloud VM, while Uplink targets the management/control layer inside Kubernetes clusters. On the API side, it provides a CLI, REST API, and Kubernetes Custom Resources, though the seat count update API requires approval to enable. No information on language SDKs was found.
Personal costs $25/month, is limited to personal use, includes up to 5 tunnels, and does not include email support. Commercial costs $50/month and includes 2 tunnels, with additional tunnels at $25/month/tunnel; it supports commercial use and includes email support. Uplink costs $250/month/cluster, includes 10 tunnels, is aimed at service providers and SaaS teams, and includes an onboarding call. Subscriptions are monthly with no long-term commitment, and a 50% discount for the first month of Uplink can be requested.
The main advantages are strong control, deep support for TCP and Kubernetes scenarios, no request or connection rate limits commonly found in SaaS tunneling tools, and suitability for connecting to many customer private networks. The drawbacks are that, compared with hosted tools such as Ngrok or Cloudflare Tunnel, getting started requires preparing a cloud VM, domain name, or Kubernetes environment; Uplink is also clearly priced for team budgets.
It is a good fit for DevOps/SRE teams, cloud-native teams, SaaS vendors, and service providers that need secure access to customer private environments. It is less suitable for lightweight users who only want a zero-configuration way to temporarily share a local web page.
The source material does not provide information on availability from mainland China, payment availability, or node locations, so its China access status is unknown. Payment methods mentioned include personal cards and company cards. If domestic access is affected by network conditions, alternatives to compare include Ngrok, Cloudflare Tunnel, Tailscale, WireGuard, and ZeroTier.
โ This review is compiled from public sources and does not constitute a purchase recommendation. Verify all facts on the vendor's official site. Verify on inlets.dev official site.
inlets.dev is an United Kingdom Dev Tools provider. TG4G tracks its product information, with monthly pricing from $125.00, an overall rating of 8.0/10, and a China-accessibility score of Workable. Click "Visit Official Site" to reach inlets.dev directly.