Underground Pick: sher — Better Local Preview URLs Than ngrok

You haven't heard of sher, but it solves a problem you face multiple times per day better than the tools everyone talks about.

While developers default to ngrok or Vercel preview URLs for sharing local development work, sher generates instant preview URLs for local projects across Vite, Next.js, Astro, and other popular frameworks — without the setup friction.

Why It's Better

ngrok requires configuration and often hits rate limits on the free tier. Vercel preview URLs require pushing to GitHub and waiting for deployment. sher just works: run sher in your project directory and get an instant shareable URL.

It's framework-aware, so it automatically detects your dev server and handles the port forwarding. No configuration files, no account setup, no waiting for CI/CD pipelines.

The tool is freemium with generous limits, and the paid tier is cheaper than ngrok Pro. But most developers will never hit the free limits for typical use cases.

Why It's Underrated

Sher doesn't have the marketing budget or ecosystem integration of established players. It's not bundled with popular frameworks or promoted by cloud platforms. It's just a developer who built a better solution to a daily annoyance.

This is exactly the kind of practical, unsexy utility that makes development workflows actually pleasant. The big players optimize for enterprise features you don't need. sher optimizes for the 80% use case: "I need to show this to someone right now."

If you're tired of ngrok's quirks or Vercel's deployment overhead for simple local sharing, give sher a try. It's the kind of tool that becomes indispensable once you start using it.

Try sher →