Packetriot

"Packetriot is a tunnel/reverse proxy service and alternative to ngrok, enabling users to expose local services to the internet, with both hosted and self-hosted options."
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packetriot.com
Maker: jborak
$500+/mo (reached $500/month in year two of a 6-year operation; current figure not specified but implied to be higher)

Marketing Channels

Ongoing

Hacker News

Creator shares annual updates in the monthly projects thread

Ongoing

Self-hosting community

Some big companies self-host the server, suggesting B2B and enterprise adoption

Planned

Community edition

Planning to release a free community edition of the server in 2026 for personal use and commercial evaluation

Growth Levers

  • Launch the community edition in 2026 to create a freemium funnel that converts personal users to commercial licenses
  • Leverage the new web-based client UI as a competitive differentiator against CLI-only alternatives
  • Target enterprise self-hosting customers with dedicated sales and support tiers
  • Publish comparison content positioning Packetriot against ngrok and other competitors on features, pricing, and reliability
  • Build on the 6-year track record and reliability narrative as competitors exit the market

First Customer Strategy

The creator built Packetriot as an alternative to ngrok and grew it over 6 years. It reached $500/month by year two through organic growth, attracting thousands of users including some big companies using the hosted service or self-hosting the server.

Pricing Insight

The product offers both hosted SaaS and self-hosted options. A free community edition is planned for 2026 to allow personal use and commercial evaluation, suggesting a freemium-to-paid conversion funnel.

Key Takeaways

  • • Persistence in a competitive space pays off -- competitors bow out while a steadily improving product endures
  • • Reaching $500/month by year two shows that infrastructure tools can have slow but steady growth trajectories
  • • Offering both hosted and self-hosted options broadens the addressable market significantly
  • • A community edition can serve as a powerful top-of-funnel acquisition strategy for enterprise conversion
  • • Continuous UX improvements (like the new web-based client UI) compound over years to create competitive moats

Sentiment Analysis

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