👩💻 In those early stages of developing an API or any kind of service that accepts incoming network requests, you might want to test it with some service on the Internet. Maybe test an integration or experiment with a mobile app connecting to the service. It would be great to be able to do so without deploying it on some kind of hosting provider, that usually takes too much time and in this stage you want quick feedback. Well, no problem, there are (free) options: ngrok - https://ngrok.com/ Most likely one of the most popular options. It has exploded in features in the last few years, but it also provides a CLI which you can use to expose a local service on a randomly generated address (custom domains are paid) with https termination for free. Install CLI, login, run a command and your local service is accessible from the Internet (limited to 1 tunnel for free). Available on pretty much any platform. Microsoft Dev Tunnels - https://lnkd.in/deE35cjy Currently in public preview, which means it is free for now, with more generous limits (default 10 tunnels per user), Dev Tunnels is another nice tool for users to expose their local services. By default, the tunnels are secured with a Entra/Microsoft/GitHub account, but you can also make the tunnel anonymous with an extra CLI call. Available on Windows, macOS and Linux. Know any other similar cool tools? Drop them in the comments!
Originally posted on LinkedIn.