Directory Cloud InfrastructureCloud Networking & CDNInlets

Inlets

About Inlets

Inlets is a cloud-native tunnel built to run over restrictive networks, NAT and firewalls. It is used to connect bare-metal, VMs, containers and Kubernetes to the cloud. It can be used for local development and in production environments. Inlets tunnels connect to each other over a secure websocket with TLS encryption. Inlets is a commercial solution developed and supported by OpenFaaS Ltd.

Products

inletsctl: Used to provision tunnel servers on various public clouds.
inlets-operator: Sets up for Kubernetes, provisioning public cloud VMs and giving IP addresses to public LoadBalancers.

Used for

Exposing local HTTPS, TCP, or websocket endpoints on the Internet
Replacing SaaS tunnels that are too restrictive
Self-hosting from a homelab or on-premises datacenter
Deploying and monitoring apps across multiple locations
Receiving webhooks and testing OAuth integrations

From Inlets's own website, read 2026-10-23. How we build listings.

How to evaluate Cloud Networking & CDN

This is how the CIOPages Research Team evaluates this category. It is not an assessment of Inlets. The category covers two kinds of product, so both frameworks are here. Most buyers need one of them.

Cloud Networking & SD-WAN

25%

SASE / Security Convergence

Native SWG, CASB, FWaaS, and DLP in the same fabric as SD-WAN; a single policy model and data pipeline across network and security; whether SD-WAN and SSE are genuinely unified or two acquired consoles; and how far advertised throughput drops with TLS decryption, IPS, and DLP all enabled

20%

Path Selection & WAN Performance

Application-aware steering and per-packet/per-session path selection across MPLS, broadband, and LTE/5G; sub-second failover and forward error correction for voice and video; loss/latency/jitter remediation (WAN optimization heritage); and granular segmentation for IoT, guest, and regulated traffic

20%

Points of Presence & Backbone

PoP density near your actual sites and clouds, and whether enforcement rides a private backbone or the public internet; cloud and SaaS on-ramps and in-country egress for residency; PoP failover behavior (there is usually no local-breakout fallback); and real measured latency from your geography, not the marketing map

15%

Zero Trust & Remote Access

ZTNA that can actually retire the VPN (clientless and agent-based, per-app least privilege, identity and device-posture context); consistent policy for branch, remote, and unmanaged devices; and secure access to private apps across multicloud without backhauling

10%

Operations, Automation & AIOps

Zero-touch provisioning at branch scale, true single-pane administration, and full API/IaC (Terraform) coverage for security policy, not just GUI; digital-experience monitoring (DEM/DEX) and AIOps for root-cause; and brownfield coexistence tooling and unified visibility during hybrid MPLS run

10%

Commercials & Operating Model

Per-site vs. per-user vs. consumption fit for your estate; module bundling (which SSE features are extra); deployment flexibility (cloud-native, appliance, virtual, or sovereign/air-gapped); managed-service vs. DIY support depth; and renewal and unwind terms for each layer

Content Delivery Network (CDN) & Edge Platforms

25%

Edge Security (WAAP, DDoS, Bot)

Always-on DDoS absorption capacity and SLA, a managed and custom-rule WAF, bot management that separates good bots from scrapers and credential-stuffers, API discovery and protection, mTLS, and rate limiting — all enforced at the edge in front of origin, with how much is bundled versus a paid add-on

20%

Caching & Delivery Performance

Cache-hit ratio under real key patterns, tiered/mid-tier caching and origin shielding, instant cache purge/invalidation at scale, TLS/HTTP3/QUIC and Brotli support, image and video optimization, and measured latency to your actual user geographies rather than the marketing map

20%

Edge Compute & Programmability

Runtime model (V8 isolates, WebAssembly, full functions) and cold-start behavior, language support, request/CPU/memory limits, edge key-value or object state, AI inference at the edge, local dev and CI/CD tooling, and observability of edge code — plus how portable that logic is off the platform

15%

Points of Presence & Scale

PoP density and peering near your users and origins, total network and egress capacity for traffic and attack spikes, anycast routing quality, live and VOD streaming scale, and presence in the regions (and sovereign/in-country) your audience and compliance demand

10%

Operations, Observability & Automation

Real-time analytics and log streaming to your SIEM/observability stack, full API and Terraform/IaC coverage for configuration and security policy, staged/versioned config with fast rollback, real-time purge, and the latency of config propagation across the edge

10%

Commercials & Operating Model

Pricing unit (committed bandwidth, per-GB egress, per-request, per-invocation) and fit to your traffic shape, which security and compute features are extra, origin-egress and cross-cloud cost, contract and overage terms, and single-CDN versus multi-CDN portability of what you build

Other Cloud Networking & CDN Vendors

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