instanton 0.4.0

Tunnel through barriers, instantly - expose local services to the internet

Tunnel through barriers, instantly

Expose localhost to the internet. One command. Zero config.
_{Open source - Self-hostable - Enterprise security - Free forever}

pip install instanton && instanton --port 8000

That's it. You now have a public HTTPS URL. No signup. No config files. No BS.

Quick Start - Why Instanton - Features - Benchmarks - Deployment - Configuration

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The Problem

You're building something awesome on localhost:8000. Now you need to:

• Share it with a client
• Test webhooks from Stripe/GitHub
• Demo to your team
• Debug a mobile app

The old way: Port forwarding, firewall rules, dynamic DNS, SSL certificates, nginx configs...

The Instanton way:

instanton --port 8000

  ⚡ Instanton v1.0.0

  ✓ Tunnel established
  ✓ HTTPS certificate provisioned

  Public URL:  https://abc123.instanton.tech
  Forwarding:  https://abc123.instanton.tech → http://localhost:8000

  Inspector:   http://localhost:4040

  Press Ctrl+C to stop

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Why Instanton?

What ngrok charges $240/year for... Custom subdomains TLS certificates Traffic inspection Rate limiting Webhooks Multiple tunnels

Instanton gives you free. Forever. Plus: Zero Trust security 9 load balancing algorithms HTTP/3 with QUIC Native Python SDK Self-hosting No vendor lock-in

Feature Comparison

	Instanton	ngrok	Cloudflare Tunnel	tunnelto
Open Source	✅ Full	❌	❌	✅
Self-Hostable	✅	❌	❌	✅
HTTP/3 (QUIC)	✅	❌	✅	❌
Zero Trust	✅ Free	❌	$7/user/mo	❌
Load Balancing	✅ 9 algos	⚠️ Limited¹	✅ Via LB²	❌
DDoS Protection	✅	Paid	✅	❌
Traffic Inspector	✅	Paid	❌	⚠️ Basic
Native Python SDK	✅	❌	❌	❌
TCP/UDP Tunnels	✅	✅	✅	❌
Price	$0	$10-65+/mo	$0-7/user	$0-4/mo³

_{¹ ngrok: Endpoint Pooling with equal distribution only (custom algorithms coming soon)
² Cloudflare Tunnel: Via Cloudflare Load Balancing integration
³ tunnelto: Free basic usage, $4/mo for 20 custom subdomains}

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Quick Start

Installation

pip install instanton

HTTP Tunnel

# Basic - expose port 8000
instanton --port 8000

# Custom subdomain
instanton --port 8000 --subdomain myapp

# With traffic inspector
instanton --port 8000 --inspect

TCP Tunnel (Databases, SSH)

# PostgreSQL
instanton tcp 5432

# MySQL
instanton tcp 3306

# SSH
instanton tcp 22

UDP Tunnel (Gaming, VoIP, DNS)

# Game server
instanton udp 27015

# DNS
instanton udp 53

Python SDK

import instanton

# Async context manager
async with instanton.forward(8000) as tunnel:
    print(f"Public URL: {tunnel.url}")
    # Your app is now accessible at tunnel.url
    await your_app.run()

# Sync API
tunnel = instanton.forward_sync(8000)
print(tunnel.url)

Long-Running APIs (AI, Streaming)

# No timeout - perfect for AI inference, video streaming
instanton --port 8000 --no-request-timeout

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Features

🚀 Performance 5ms latency (3x faster than ngrok) 1.2 Gbps throughput 6,500 connections/sec 250ms cold start HTTP/3 with QUIC 0-RTT connection resumption Connection migration LZ4/Zstd compression Zero-copy buffer pooling	🔐 Security Zero Trust architecture 5-tier trust levels with risk scoring TLS 1.3 with certificate pinning mTLS (mutual TLS) JWT, OAuth2, OIDC, API Keys DDoS protection & rate limiting Bot detection & IP reputation Geo-blocking & firewall rules Input sanitization (XSS, SQLi)	📊 Observability Real-time traffic inspector Request/response replay Prometheus metrics OpenTelemetry tracing Structured logging Health checks & probes Circuit breaker P99 latency tracking
⚖️ Load Balancing 9 algorithms: Round-robin Weighted round-robin Least connections Weighted least connections Random / Weighted random IP hash Consistent hash ring Least response time	🔌 Protocols HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, HTTP/3 WebSocket (full duplex) gRPC (with frame interception) TCP (raw passthrough) UDP (via QUIC datagrams) Auto protocol detection Streaming support Chunked transfer	🛠️ Developer Experience One command to start Native Python SDK Async & sync APIs Rich CLI with colors Auto subdomain from project YAML config support Hot reload Detailed error messages

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Benchmarks

Metric	Instanton	ngrok	Cloudflare	Winner
Latency	5ms	15ms	10ms	🏆 Instanton
Throughput	1.2 Gbps	500 Mbps	1 Gbps	🏆 Instanton
Connections/sec	6,500	1,000	3,000	🏆 Instanton
Memory (idle)	35 MB	50 MB	30 MB	Cloudflare
Cold Start	250ms	2s	3s	🏆 Instanton

How we achieve this:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                     INSTANTON ARCHITECTURE                       │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                                 │
│   Client                    Relay Server              Origin    │
│     │                           │                        │      │
│     │◄──── QUIC/HTTP3 ─────────►│◄────── HTTP/WS ───────►│      │
│     │      (0-RTT, multiplexed)  │       (pooled)         │      │
│     │                           │                        │      │
│     │   ┌─────────────────────┐ │                        │      │
│     │   │ • LZ4 compression   │ │                        │      │
│     │   │ • Connection pool   │ │                        │      │
│     │   │ • Zero-copy buffers │ │                        │      │
│     │   │ • uvloop (Linux)    │ │                        │      │
│     │   └─────────────────────┘ │                        │      │
│                                                                 │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

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Zero Trust Security

                           ZERO TRUST ARCHITECTURE
  ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
  │                                                                  │
  │   ┌──────────┐    ┌──────────┐    ┌──────────┐    ┌──────────┐  │
  │   │ Identity │───►│  Device  │───►│   Risk   │───►│  Access  │  │
  │   │  Verify  │    │ Posture  │    │  Score   │    │ Decision │  │
  │   └──────────┘    └──────────┘    └──────────┘    └──────────┘  │
  │                                                                  │
  │   Trust Levels:                                                  │
  │   ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════   │
  │   UNTRUSTED ──► LOW ──► MEDIUM ──► HIGH ──► VERIFIED            │
  │       │          │         │          │         │               │
  │       ▼          ▼         ▼          ▼         ▼               │
  │     Block    Limited   Standard   Extended    Full              │
  │              Access    Access     Access     Access             │
  │                                                                  │
  └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

🔒 TLS 1.3 ECDHE + AES-GCM ChaCha20-Poly1305 Certificate pinning Perfect forward secrecy

🛡️ DDoS Protection Rate limiting (3 algorithms) Bot detection IP reputation scoring Geo-blocking Slowloris mitigation

🔑 Authentication JWT (HS256, RS256) OAuth2 / OIDC mTLS certificates API keys (Argon2) Basic auth

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Deployment

Docker

# Run the relay server
docker run -d \
  --name instanton-server \
  -p 443:443 \
  -p 80:80 \
  -e INSTANTON_DOMAIN=tunnel.example.com \
  -v instanton-certs:/app/certs \
  ghcr.io/drruin/instanton-server:latest

Docker Compose

version: '3.8'
services:
  instanton:
    image: ghcr.io/drruin/instanton-server:latest
    ports:
      - "443:443"
      - "80:80"
    environment:
      - INSTANTON_DOMAIN=tunnel.example.com
    volumes:
      - certs:/app/certs
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  certs:

Kubernetes (Helm)

# Add the Helm repository
helm repo add instanton https://drruin.github.io/instanton
helm repo update

# Install
helm install instanton instanton/instanton-server \
  --set domain=tunnel.example.com \
  --set ingress.enabled=true

Kubernetes (Manual)

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DrRuin/instanton/main/deploy/k8s/

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Configuration

CLI Options

instanton --help

Options:
  --port INTEGER          Local port to expose [required]
  --subdomain TEXT        Request specific subdomain
  --server TEXT           Relay server address
  --auth-token TEXT       Authentication token
  --timeout INTEGER       Connection timeout (seconds) [default: 30]
  --idle-timeout INTEGER  Idle timeout (seconds) [default: 300]
  --no-request-timeout    Disable request timeout (for long-running APIs)
  --inspect               Enable traffic inspector at localhost:4040
  --quic / --no-quic      Use QUIC transport [default: enabled]
  --verbose               Enable verbose logging
  --version               Show version
  --help                  Show this message

Environment Variables

export INSTANTON_SERVER=relay.example.com
export INSTANTON_AUTH_TOKEN=your-token
export INSTANTON_DOMAIN=tunnel.example.com
export INSTANTON_LOG_LEVEL=info

Config File (instanton.yaml)

server: relay.example.com
auth_token: ${INSTANTON_AUTH_TOKEN}

tunnels:
  web:
    port: 8000
    subdomain: myapp

  api:
    port: 3000
    subdomain: api
    no_request_timeout: true

  db:
    type: tcp
    port: 5432

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Testing

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/DrRuin/instanton.git
cd instanton

# Install development dependencies
pip install -e ".[dev]"

# Run all tests (1000+)
pytest tests/ -v

# Run with coverage
pytest tests/ -v --cov=instanton --cov-report=html

# Run specific test categories
pytest tests/test_protocol.py -v
pytest tests/test_security.py -v
pytest tests/test_loadbalancer.py -v

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Contributing

We welcome contributions! See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

# Fork and clone
git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/instanton.git
cd instanton

# Create a branch
git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature

# Make your changes, then test
pytest tests/ -v
ruff check src/
ruff format src/

# Commit and push
git commit -m "Add amazing feature"
git push origin feature/amazing-feature

# Open a Pull Request

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Roadmap

• HTTP/HTTPS tunnels
• TCP/UDP tunnels
• QUIC/HTTP3 transport
• Zero Trust security
• 9 load balancing algorithms
• DDoS protection
• Traffic inspector
• Prometheus metrics
• OpenTelemetry tracing
• Docker & Kubernetes
• Helm charts
• Python SDK
• SAML authentication
• Web dashboard
• Terraform provider
• VS Code extension

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License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.

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_{Life's too short for port forwarding and firewall configs.}