Porchlight
Reach your home server from anywhere, even on Jio.
Localtonet already runs a live CGNAT tunnel with Jellyfin support, so the core job exists.
Indian home internet hides your server behind CGNAT, so devices outside your home cannot reach it.
The free fixes are weak: Cloudflare Tunnel's terms restrict video streaming, and Tailscale needs an app on every device, which breaks sharing with family and TVs. Building your own relay means renting a server and setting up security yourself, and most beginners give up at that step.
Porchlight gives your home server a public relay in Mumbai, set up with one command and shared with family through WhatsApp links.
- 1Run one command on your Pi, mini-PC or old laptop.
- 2Pick the apps you want to share, like Jellyfin or Immich.
- 3Send a WhatsApp link to family, with a bandwidth cap you set.
Why it failed
Check 3 · Already existsLocaltonet is a live hosted tunnel that already does the core job. It works behind CGNAT, explicitly permits Jellyfin and Plex streaming, and costs about $2 per tunnel per month with unlimited bandwidth, custom domains and auto-TLS. Porchlight's remaining wedges (UPI billing, a Mumbai relay, WhatsApp invites, per-guest links) are real but thin, and I could not confirm that Localtonet lacks an India node.
What already exists
7 products checked- 01
Get 10 paid UPI pre-orders from homelab users; kill it if they pick Localtonet.
- 02
Verify whether Localtonet has an India node and test latency on a Jio connection.
- 03
Build only the guest-invite layer, and only if Localtonet cannot match it.
- Pangolin (Fossorial)
Open-source WireGuard-based tunnelled reverse proxy that works behind CGNAT with a roughly $5 VPS. Porchlight is not a general zero-trust tool for teams. It is a consumer-priced, India-hosted relay with UPI billing, TV-friendly guest invites and per-guest bandwidth caps, so no VPS or Docker Compose is needed.
- PikaPods
Managed one-click hosting of open-source apps at a few dollars a month, with revenue sharing for app developers. PikaPods moves your data to their cloud. Porchlight keeps the data on your own box at home and sells only the front door, which fits the privacy and local-first motive.
- HolyArrs (Show HN: 15 MB self-hosted Netflix and Spotify for your media server)
Signal of demand for self-hosted media apps replacing streaming subscriptions. Porchlight doesn't build another media app. It solves the reachability and sharing layer all of these apps (Jellyfin, Navidrome, Immich, HolyArrs) need.
- Tailscale Funnel / Peer Relays
Mesh VPN and public-exposure feature, with documented difficulty on Indian CGNAT. Guests need no client install. Porchlight offers a public-URL experience with per-guest revocable access and a relay sized for sustained streaming, located in India.
- Indian residential ISPs (Jio, Airtel, BSNL, ACT) place subscribers behind CGNAT, often symmetric NAT, which breaks standard UDP hole punching. Tailscale itself documents a 12.5x performance fix needed for a homelab in India.tailscale.com ↗
- 2026 self-hosting guides say CGNAT is the step where most Indian beginners fail. Port forwarding tutorials silently fail, and Nextcloud setups behind Jio/BSNL need a tunnel or VPN.gavety.com ↗
- Indian developers publish DIY workarounds (free Oracle VPS + frp + Nginx + Certbot) to get around CGNAT. The setup is long and technical, which shows demand and pain.dev.to ↗
- Jellyfin's official community standards say streaming video through a regular Cloudflare Tunnel violates Cloudflare's ToS, so the most popular free fix is officially discouraged for media servers.jellyfin.org ↗
- Cloudflare's own ToS update says video and large files hosted outside Cloudflare remain restricted on its CDN. Community threads show domains being flagged.blog.cloudflare.com ↗
- A recent XDA piece says sharing Jellyfin with family is still painful. VPNs need installs, Cloudflare Access breaks the native TV login, and Tailscale Funnel isn't built for sustained high-bitrate streaming.