Cloudflare Quick Tunnels

Posted by jcbhmr 22 hours ago

Cloudflare Quick Tunnels(try.cloudflare.com)

720 points | 285 commentspage 5

nickgray 17 hours ago|

This is cool. I like it! Also Cloudflare design has stepped up so much over the past 2 years.

nyxtom 11 hours ago||

I've used these tunnels all the time when I wasn't at my computer. Insanely helpful when doing agentic work on the go

smalltorch 20 hours ago||

If your a hobbiest or dev just testing your services, it makes more sense to utilize onion services imho.

It does the exact same thing, except supported by a global network of volunteers around the world.

Sure, you get some latency, but this is actually ideal for testing. You should know how your service operates in non optimal lightning fast conditions.

thenewnewguy 20 hours ago|

I honestly can't tell if you're trolling or this is an HN out of touch moment.

The obvious difference (and thus massive advantage) of the cloudfare product is that it is accessible over the normal internet without needing to install a tor client.

I'm sure that works for some subset of the population where all potential users are already comfortable using Tor; but imagine trying to share your PoC website with the designer/client and you are asking them to install Tor browser.

smalltorch 20 hours ago||

>hobbiest or dev just testing your services

Is different than sharing your work with a client.

I personally wouldnt make it SOP to utilize a complely free service like this to share my work. I'm not saying it's not convient, it definitely is.

But you shouldn't subject a clients product to terms they probably aren't aware of.

rinconrex 19 hours ago||

Oh I use this for testing and demos between my phone and computer. Ngrok is fine, probably better off using Tailscale, but it's very easy to just run a quick tunnel with "cloudflared tunnel --url localhost:XXXX".

ZeroCool2u 20 hours ago||

This is handy, but I wonder how much it will cannibalize their services. I have a simple app deployed on cloudflare for a very niche single purpose use, but I wouldn't have bothered if I had this. Serving it from my own machine would have been fine.

aniviacat 20 hours ago||

Cloudflare Tunnels has been a free service of Cloudflare for quite a while now. What's new is being able to use them without needing an account.

bakugo 20 hours ago||

It's not new. Maybe this page is new, but being able to set up a quick tunnel on trycloudflare.com without an account has been a thing for years.

danserfaty 20 hours ago|||

Maybe it's a nice way to quickly test a new service or change over the internet without going through the git process, same way one would use ngrok - I could see that being helpful when prototyping / pocs, etc - before deploying changes to your app via the proper channel, especially if you are already using cloudflare for your domains/apps. As other people said, it probably would not be practical or scalable for most people to run an app 24/7 from their laptop using their home or office internet connection.

roncesvalles 20 hours ago||

Not many people run their local machine 24/7.

berofeev 20 hours ago|||

What does reality look like on this nowadays?

My initial thought was desktops generally run 24/7, with laptops running when in use. At least for the customer at the market intersection for this type of product.

JavierFlores09 20 hours ago|||

I often tell my dev colleagues to avoid having their PC turned on all the time, be it because of the electricity bill cost, environmental impact or simply to make the longevity of the hardware a little longer. Granted almost everyone just ignores those things even if they're conscious of it, so I'd say you're right

seabrookmx 17 hours ago||

There's pros and cons on the longevity side. 24/7 use causes more wear to mechanical parts (fans for instance) but can be better for the electronics, as heat cycles are a big part of the problem there.

SoftTalker 18 hours ago||||

Yeah my desktop is on 24/7. Laptop is on when in use. Phone is on all the time too, of course, but I don't use it for browsing or work nearly as much as my desktop.

roncesvalles 19 hours ago|||

Very few people own desktops anymore. Generally people only buy desktops if they need to run a GPU, such as for gaming or running a local model.

sophacles 20 hours ago||||

There are people who turn off their computer?

cmacleod4 18 hours ago|||

You do if you're hosting a website on it :-)

kelvinjps10 20 hours ago||

What's the difference between this and their previous Cloudflare Tunnels solution?

awwaiid 17 hours ago||

As far as I can tell, the difference is that they made a new website? The cloudflared instant tunnels have been around for years, including json output as far as I know.

raahelb 19 hours ago|||

From their docs [0]:

> Free tunnels are meant to be used for testing and development, not for deploying a production website.

[0: https://developers.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-one/networks/co...

opengrass 14 hours ago||

This gives a random trycloudflare.com subdomain each run, the other requires a domain and tunnel key on your account.

cryptolobster 14 hours ago||

For small-scale personal or family applications serving just a few users, does it make sense to choose Quick Tunnels over Tailscale or Pangolin?

corvad 19 hours ago||

This is not anything new they have been around since the tunnels project launched. What is more concerning is the AI slop webpage and just the "AI" centered relaunch of an existing product.

jdthedisciple 14 hours ago||

Interesting but what a horribly vibe coded website that barely works on mobile

Gigachad 14 hours ago|

It's broken on desktop too...

nullbyte 19 hours ago|

Love this, very cool.

I used to use a service called ngrok for this, but it's nice that Cloudflare is offering one now.

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