Frequently Asked Questions

What data is visible to the relay?

Porthole uses a relay-only architecture. For standard HTTP tunnels, the relay terminates TLS to provide the HTTPS URL, meaning it can see the request paths and headers. However, we do not log or store the contents of your traffic.

Why is it free?

Porthole is currently free to use as we focus on building the best experience for developers. Our goal is to provide a reliable tool for the community. We may introduce premium features or usage-based tiers in the future to cover infrastructure costs.

Does Porthole support WebSockets?

Yes! WebSockets are supported out of the box. This makes Porthole ideal for testing real-time applications, chat apps, and development tools that rely on Hot Module Replacement (HMR).

How does password authentication work?

If you protect your tunnel with a password, Porthole serves a lightweight login page at the relay before any traffic reaches your local server.

• Access: Visitors must enter the password once per session.
• Security: Access is enforced at the relay and stored in a secure, http-only cookie.
• Compatibility: This avoids conflicts with your app’s own auth and works with any framework.

Do you collect telemetry?

By default, Porthole collects anonymized usage analytics to help us improve reliability and UX.

• What we collect: session starts/stops, request counts, latency distributions, and aggregate byte totals.
• What we never collect: request bodies, headers, URLs, IP addresses, or any personal data.
• Opt‑out: Disable via --no-telemetry.