openziti/zrok

Geo-scale, next-generation sharing platform built on top of OpenZiti.

Summary

zrok is a Go-based tool for securely sharing web services, files, and network resources over the internet without changing firewall or router settings. It is built on OpenZiti, a programmable zero-trust network overlay, so traffic is end-to-end encrypted and can traverse NAT and corporate networks. The project provides a command-line client, a Go SDK for embedding, and a self-hostable service.

What it is useful for

zrok is useful when an engineer needs to expose a local service to a teammate or external user without configuring port forwarding, VPNs, or public IPs. The README documents sharing HTTP services, folders as a "drive" backend, and private TCP/UDP tunnels restricted to other zrok users. That makes it relevant for demoing localhost work, sharing files with collaborators, or adding identity-based access to applications that do not natively support zero-trust networking. The README does not document performance characteristics, throughput limits, or quotas for the hosted service, so those should be checked in the official docs before relying on it for production traffic. Cross-platform support is documented for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Raspberry Pi.

How engineers can use it

The README's quick start requires installing the binary, requesting access with zrok invite (against the hosted zrok.io service), and enabling the environment with zrok enable. The documented share commands are:

zrok share public localhost:8080
zrok share public --backend-mode drive ~/Documents
zrok share private localhost:3000

For embedding into an application, the README shows a Go SDK snippet that creates a private TCP share and accepts connections through a returned listener token.

Teams that cannot use the hosted service can self-host from a single binary, which the README says scales from a Raspberry Pi to larger deployments. Building from source is covered in BUILD.md, contributing in CONTRIBUTING.md, and platform-specific install steps are linked from the README to docs.zrok.io, which the README treats as the authoritative install guide. The repository is licensed under Apache-2.0.