Quickly Share Your Local App Online

“I just want to quickly show someone the app I built!”
Normally, you’d need to deploy your app using a cloud service like Heroku or AWS.
But let’s be honest—that can be a hassle.

In this article, I’ll introduce some super convenient services that let you temporarily expose your locally running app to the outside world.
Note: These tools are not recommended for production use. Use them at your own risk!

I’m a Mac user, so this guide skips Windows-specific steps.

1. ngrok

How to Use

1. Sign in on the official ngrok website.
2. Follow the installation instructions for macOS provided here.

Here’s a quick visual guide for using it:

✅ Just follow these 3 steps and you’re good to go!

💡 Be sure to replace 8080 with the port your app is actually running on.

That’s it—your app is now accessible externally. It’s shockingly simple.

2. Cloudflare QuickTunnel

This is a tunneling service provided by Cloudflare. It might be the simplest option of all.

How to Use

First, install it:

brew install cloudflared

Then create a tunnel with:

cloudflared tunnel --url http://localhost:8080

Boom—you’re done! No complicated setup required, and you get HTTPS access out of the box.
Check the official documentation for more details.

3. zrok

zrok is a bit quirky, but once you get it working, it’s a powerful tunneling tool.

Installation

You can install it via Homebrew, but mismatched versions often cause errors.
It’s safer to download the binary directly from the official site.

How to Use

1. Create an account and log in.

2. In the sidebar, select zrok.

3. Copy the command shown (e.g., zrok enable <token>).

Then run this in your terminal:

zrok enable <your_account_token>
zrok share public 8080

It takes more setup, but once it’s working, it’s solid.

Why did I look into this?

I was testing authentication for Threads (Meta’s SNS platform).

To use Facebook-related OAuth, your server must be accessible via HTTPS.
So I used the services above to make my local app HTTPS-compatible temporarily.

However…
It turns out that Facebook’s OAuth blocks requests from services like ngrok, Cloudflare, and zrok. (Cue sad trombone.)

In the end, I had to spin up a real server with a custom domain to test authentication properly.

Summary

If you just want to quickly demo or have someone check your app, these services are super handy.
But remember—they’re strictly for development and testing.
Use proper deployment setups for anything production-grade!