--- title: STunnel Reviews meta_title: 'STunnel Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how STunnel works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 3.9 review_count: 5 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-06-30' parent_category: name: Confidentiality url: https://www.g2.com/categories/confidentiality --- # STunnel Reviews **Vendor:** STunnel **Category:** [Encryption Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/encryption-software) **Average Rating:** 3.9/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 5 ## About STunnel Stunnel is a proxy designed to add TLS encryption functionality to existing clients and servers without any changes in the programs' code. ## STunnel Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users highlight the **strong TLS encryption** provided by STunnel for enhancing security in legacy applications effortlessly. (3 reviews) - Users value the **strong TLS encryption** offered by Stunnel, enhancing security effortlessly for legacy applications. (3 reviews) - Users find Stunnel to be **highly accessible** with excellent documentation and user-friendly features for enhancing app security. (2 reviews) - Users find STunnel **very easy to use** , enabling straightforward SSL integration and enhanced security for existing applications. (2 reviews) - Users value the **strong TLS encryption** offered by STunnel, effectively securing legacy protocols without adjustments. (2 reviews) - Centralized Management (1 reviews) - Cybersecurity (1 reviews) - Efficiency (1 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users experience **slow performance** with Stunnel due to significant overhead from its cryptographic processing on high traffic. (3 reviews) - Users find the **complex setup** challenging, requiring a deep understanding of documentation for proper configuration. (1 reviews) - Users report **performance drops** due to the encryption layer and note the lack of intrusion detection features. (1 reviews) - Users report **encryption issues** causing performance drops and a complicated setup process lacking additional security features. (1 reviews) - Users find the **learning difficulty** of Stunnel challenging, but it ultimately functions well after some effort. (1 reviews) - Manual Intervention Required (1 reviews) ## STunnel Reviews ### 1. Reliable and efficient way to add ssl to legacy applications **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 07, 2024 **What do you like best about STunnel?** It's really user-friendly and offers a straightforward way to add a security layer to your application, enabling SSL capabilities. Plus, it's open source, which makes it even more accessible, especially with the excellent documentation available. It relies on OpenSSL under the hood, which is a huge advantage for compatibility. Overall, it's a solid choice for anyone looking to enhance security of their applications. **What do you dislike about STunnel?** There’s been a bit of a drop in performance for the application because of the encryption layer. The initial setup can be a little tricky since you really need to understand the documentation, as everything has to be configured in the stunnel.conf file. Also, it only focuses on encrypting traffic and doesn’t offer any features for intrusion detection or prevention, which is a bit of a downside. **What problems is STunnel solving and how is that benefiting you?** It lets us wrap our legacy application and use an encrypted connection with the OpenSSL library, so there's no need to change the application itself. ### 2. Stunnel is Awesome! **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 12, 2024 **What do you like best about STunnel?** Strong TLS encryption is a feature that Stunnel excels at offering for outdated protocols. It boosts security without changing already-existing apps. It is quite easy to use and provides a clear method for adding a security layer and turning on SSL capabilities to your application. Furthermore, because of the available documentation, it is much more accessible because it is open source. The fact that OpenSSL is used internally is a major compatibility benefit. For those wishing to improve the security of their apps, it's an excellent option all around. **What do you dislike about STunnel?** The performance overhead of Stunnel can be substantial because of its cryptographic processing. High connection traffic throughput may be impacted by this. It took some getting used to and required some searching on forums and internet, but once that was done, it worked perfectly! **What problems is STunnel solving and how is that benefiting you?** Through the protection of sensitive data communications, tunnel enhances privacy. It allows for safe communication across systems that are incompatible without changing already-running apps. ### 3. Simplifying Secure Data Transport Using STunnel **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Dhaval S. | Business Analyst, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 09, 2024 **What do you like best about STunnel?** STunnel services to TLS Encryption provides a lightweight yet powerful solution to efficiently secure non-TLS protocols in a variety of environments. **What do you dislike about STunnel?** Using Stunnel in a chroot environment requires additional configuration steps to ensure TCP Wrappers work properly. **What problems is STunnel solving and how is that benefiting you?** Stunnel enables TLS encryption for current clients and servers without requiring any code modifications, which facilitates secure communication for untrusted network also. ### 4. STunnel Role in Securing Client-Server Architecture **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Dhaval K. | Technology Analyst, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 06, 2024 **What do you like best about STunnel?** Stunnel is excellent at providing strong TLS encryption for legacy protocols. Increase security without modifying existing applications. **What do you dislike about STunnel?** Stunnel's performance overhead can be significant due to cryptographic processing. This may affect the throughput of high connection volumes. **What problems is STunnel solving and how is that benefiting you?** Stunnel increases privacy by protecting sensitive data communications. Enables secure communication between incompatible systems without modifying existing applications. ### 5. stunnel is great! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 16, 2018 **What do you like best about STunnel?** that STunnel gave me the ability to use needed old software with SSL **What do you dislike about STunnel?** the configuration was a little annoying and not easy, I had to google and search on their forums, but after that it was great! **Recommendations to others considering STunnel:** I recommend the use of Stunnel definitely!! **What problems is STunnel solving and how is that benefiting you?** We had an older software that uses POP but does not use SSL, STunnel allowed us to "trick" the software into using SSL and allowing us to have secure mail ## STunnel Discussions - [What is STunnel used for?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-stunnel-used-for) - [View STunnel pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/stunnel/reviews?section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-07-12+22%3A58%3A24+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=13075575-5fa6-491c-b11f-4c260bbb4c17&secure%5Btoken%5D=82d0a472a5c1f8c7a2936a96dc8e6fb769336253fffac6f878ce1197bcda3bda&format=llm_user) ## STunnel Features **Encryption** - Email Encryption - Messaging Encryption - File Transfer Encryption - Data Encryption - Document Encryption - Full-Disk Encryption **Compliance** - Authentication - Policy Enforcement - Access Management **Management** - Backup - Recovery - File Management - Anomaly Detection ## Top STunnel Alternatives - [Keeper Password Manager](https://www.g2.com/products/keeper-password-manager/reviews) - 4.6/5.0 (1,226 reviews) - [Progress MOVEit](https://www.g2.com/products/progress-moveit/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (520 reviews) - [Signal](https://www.g2.com/products/open-whisper-systems-signal/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (448 reviews)