Why PortBay

Running more than one project locally turns your machine into an unmanaged server. You juggle background processes (pnpm dev, php-fpm, vite, redis-server), fight over ports, hand-edit /etc/hosts, mint self-signed certificates, and keep a reverse proxy alive — then multiply all of that by every project you own. The result is forgotten processes, port collisions, expired certs, and "it worked yesterday" mornings.

PortBay treats your machine like a small PaaS. Each project is a declarative record — a hostname, a start command, a port — and the app owns the rest: lifecycle, routing, and certificates. Stop the app and every project stops. Restart one project and the others are untouched.

The design constraint is to stay native and small: under 80 MB idle RAM and a sub-30 MB installer, so it sits next to your editor and browser without being noticed.

What it does

• Point it at a folder — it already knows the project. PortBay reads the framework (Next.js, Vite, plain Node, PHP, Laravel) and fills in the start command, port, hostname, and HTTPS. Nothing to configure by hand before the first run.
• One-click Play / Stop per project — start and stop a project without hunting for the right terminal tab.
• A universal Stop-All kill switch that always works, even after a crash.
• Real HTTPS hostnames like https://myproject.test, issued and trusted locally.
• Wildcard .test routing via a bundled DNS resolver — no per-project hosts edits.
• Reverse-proxy routing managed for you through Caddy's admin API.
• Bundled databases — PortBay-supervised MySQL, MariaDB, Postgres, Redis, MongoDB, and Memcached.
• Public sharing — expose any project over a Cloudflare tunnel with one click.
• A sandboxed runner — run an untrusted or freshly-cloned project inside a macOS sandbox, inspect it, then promote it to a normal local run.
• An MCP server — drive your whole local stack from Claude Code, Cursor, or Zed; PortBay's projects and actions are exposed as agent tools.
• A declarative registry — projects live in JSON; the daemon reconciles reality to match.
• Live logs, status, and metrics per project, plus a macOS menu-bar mode.
• Already using Herd, ServBay, or MAMP? Import your existing sites in one step — no re-entering paths, ports, and PHP versions.

Everything is driven by a Rust core with full CLI parity, so the GUI — and your AI agent — are clients, not the source of truth.

A look around

How it compares

PortBay is not the first local-dev manager. It is the open-source, container-free, native one.

If you live in PHP on macOS today, Herd is excellent. PortBay's bet is a single open, lightweight tool that handles mixed Node/PHP/static stacks without a daemon zoo. It's free and open source (AGPL-3.0); an optional, pay-what-you-want Pro tier — earned with a donation or a merged pull request — funds the project and unlocks hosted multi-device sync and a few power-user features. No subscription, and nothing you can't build yourself.

For head-to-head breakdowns, see the in-depth comparisons — PortBay vs Laravel Herd, ServBay, MAMP, Docker, Valet, DDEV, and Local.

How it works

GUI (Tauri + Svelte)
  └─ Tauri IPC → PortBay Core (Rust)
                   ├─ Process Compose  — manages your dev processes
                   ├─ Caddy            — reverse proxy (admin API for live routes)
                   ├─ dnsmasq          — wildcard *.test resolution
                   ├─ mkcert           — locally-trusted HTTPS certificates
                   └─ Hosts file       — managed entries via a privileged helper

The full design is in docs/ARCHITECTURE.md; the UX principles are in docs/UX_DESIGN.md.

Getting started

PortBay ships as a signed, notarized macOS app for Apple Silicon (macOS 11+).

Install with Homebrew:

brew tap portbay-app/portbay
brew install --cask portbay

Or download the DMG: grab the latest PortBay-macos-arm64.dmg from the releases page, open it, and drag PortBay.app into Applications. Full install notes — uninstall, requirements, and Gatekeeper details — are in the install guide.

Run from source

For contributors, or anyone who'd rather build it themselves.

Prerequisites: Rust, pnpm, and the Xcode command-line tools.

git clone https://github.com/portbay-app/portbay.git
cd portbay
pnpm install

# Fetch the platform-specific sidecar binaries (large, so not committed):
./scripts/fetch-caddy.sh
./scripts/fetch-mkcert.sh
./scripts/fetch-mailpit.sh
./scripts/fetch-cloudflared.sh
./scripts/fetch-dnsmasq.sh

pnpm tauri dev

Re-run a fetch script after bumping the version constant inside it. On a fresh clone, pnpm tauri dev will not start until the sidecar binaries are in place.

Documentation

The documentation site is built with VitePress and lives in docs-site/ — install, first run, project setup, CLI reference, registry schema, troubleshooting, and migration guides from Herd / ServBay / MAMP.

pnpm docs:dev      # local preview
pnpm docs:build

Status

PortBay is released and in active use on macOS (Apple Silicon). Most of what follows is already shipped — not planned.

• Core — registry, reconciler, Process Compose + Caddy adapters, hosts manager, full CLI. Shipped.
• GUI — projects, lifecycle, logs, metrics, certificates, web servers, tunnels, DNS, databases, languages/runtimes, HTTP inspector, sandboxed runner, Mailpit, and one-step import from Herd / ServBay / MAMP. Shipped.
• AI & automation — an MCP server (58 tools) plus stack recipes drive the whole stack from Claude Code, Cursor, or Zed. Shipped.
• Release — signed & notarized DMG, Homebrew cask, and in-app auto-update. Shipped.

On the roadmap

• More platforms — Apple Silicon today; Intel and Linux next, then Windows.

Contributing

PortBay is early but open. Issues and discussions are welcome now — bug reports, ideas, and feedback on the architecture all help. Code contributions are opening up as the public API stabilizes; see CONTRIBUTING.md for how to get involved, and CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md for the ground rules.

If PortBay is useful to you, starring the repo genuinely helps it reach other developers.

Support the project

PortBay is free and open source (AGPL-3.0). Sponsorships fund the things open source still has to pay for — a code-signing certificate, build infrastructure, and maintainer time — and keep the project independent. If your team relies on it, please consider sponsoring.

Editions

PortBay Community — this repository — is the open-source local development manager for individuals and teams who want a clean, transparent way to run projects locally. It is fully usable offline, with no account and no network.

PortBay Pro is developed separately and may include team sync, cloud backups, remote access, hosted recipes, billing, organization management, enterprise policy controls, and managed infrastructure. It builds on the Community app through documented public APIs — the Community edition is never crippled to upsell it, and this repository contains no proprietary Pro code. See Community vs Pro and the repo boundaries.

License

PortBay Community is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 only (AGPL-3.0-only) — you may use, study, modify, and share it, and if you distribute it or run a modified version as a network service, the AGPL's terms apply. PortBay Pro is separate commercial software.

• Plain-English summary: docs/pages/license.md
• License map and policy: docs/legal/licensing.md
• Third-party components: NOTICE

SPDX-License-Identifier: AGPL-3.0-only · © PortBay contributors. This is a summary, not legal advice — the LICENSE file is binding.

Security & conduct

• Report vulnerabilities privately — see SECURITY.md. Do not open public issues for security problems.
• Participation is governed by the Code of Conduct.
• Project decision-making is described in GOVERNANCE.md.