Surfboard

Surfboard puts powerful proxy routing and traffic control in your pocket

Surfboard is a specialized network debugging tool designed for users who want deep control over how their traffic flows. Rather than being a simple VPN client, it works more like a programmable network gateway, letting you redirect selected connections through a variety of proxy protocols, including HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS5, SOCKS5-TLS, Shadowsocks, VMess, and Trojan.

At the heart of Surfboard is its use of the system’s VpnService API. This allows it to intercept traffic at a low level and apply flexible rules: you can forward, modify, or block connections, or bypass the tunnel entirely for chosen apps and domains. That makes it excellent for testing latency and routing, reproducing network issues, or verifying how different services behave under specific conditions.

The interface focuses on configuration rather than hand-holding. You’ll find options for per-app routing, domain-based rules, and granular bypass settings, but newcomers to proxies and tunneling may feel overwhelmed at first. Surfboard clearly targets power users, developers, and privacy enthusiasts who already understand proxies and are comfortable tweaking network parameters.

Performance will depend on the proxies you use, but Surfboard’s rule-based design helps you optimize: you can push only what you need through remote servers while keeping local or trusted traffic direct, potentially reducing unnecessary overhead. The ability to exclude specific apps from the VPN interface is particularly useful for banking tools, streaming services, or anything that misbehaves behind tunnels.

Surfboard is not a one-tap privacy solution and doesn’t pretend to be. For casual users it may be too technical, but for anyone who wants precise, scriptable-style control over routing and debugging, it is a powerful and highly flexible companion.