What is the difference between stunnel and sshuttle

Question

Can someone explain to me the benefits of using one over the other? Are they comparable?

I understand that sshuttle acts as a proxy for outbound communication, however can it also be used to forward connections?

For instance, stunnel can be used as a reverse proxy for tunneling data outside of my network. Is this something that can be done with sshuttle?

Answer 1

The main difference between these two is the level where do they work. You can achieve the same security with the sshuttle with both, because it works on underlying level of stunnel. But for using stunnel you usually need special setup, unlike for the other, which just work on what is provided (underlying level).

• stunnel is based on SSL protocol and works on TCP (layer 4).

• shuttle creates TUN devices using SSH protocol (virtual network devices) “point-to-point” (layer 3) or “ethernet” (layer 2).

To understand the difference, have a look at the ISO/OSI description of layers: