A BloomRPC alternative for the Mac

BloomRPC was archived by its maintainers on 4 January 2023 and no longer receives updates. If you used it to import a .proto, fill in a request and press Run, istek does the same thing as a native Mac app: 5.4 MB to download, $29 once, for macOS 14 or later on Apple Silicon.

Updated

What happened to BloomRPC

BloomRPC was one of the first GUI clients for gRPC, and many backend developers learned gRPC with it. Its repository is now archived and read-only, and its README describes it as a former GUI client that is no longer maintained. Existing copies still open, but nothing will fix a bug, support a new macOS version or add a feature.

The BloomRPC workflow in istek

  1. Drag your .proto files onto the istek window, or choose File ▸ Import .proto Files… (⌘O). Imports and the well-known types resolve on their own, with no protoc to install.
  2. Type the server address, such as localhost:50051, in the toolbar and click Connect (⇧⌘C).
  3. Pick a method in the sidebar. The request editor fills in a JSON template for its input message.
  4. Edit the JSON and press ⌘↩. The response and its status appear on the right.

If your server has reflection turned on, you can skip step 1: istek asks the server for its services when you connect.

What istek adds

  • Server reflection (v1, with a v1alpha fallback), so a reflecting server needs no .proto at all.
  • All four call types, with a transcript that times every stream message. ⇧⌘E half-closes a client stream and ⌘. cancels a call.
  • Mutual TLS with your own CA bundle, client certificate and key, or the system trust store.
  • Metadata values marked secret go to the macOS Keychain, never into the workspace file.
  • Environments, tabs, request history, and Copy as grpcurl for any call.
  • No account, no telemetry, and 5.4 MB to download. It uses 22 MB of memory and opens in 0.25 s.

What BloomRPC had that istek does not

  • BloomRPC was free and open source; istek is paid.
  • BloomRPC shipped builds for Windows and Linux as well as macOS; istek is Mac-only.
  • BloomRPC could send gRPC-Web requests; istek speaks native gRPC only.

Price

$29 once for one developer, installed on every Mac you use, with updates through 1.x. Teams pay $24 per seat. There is no subscription. See pricing.

istek, $29 once

macOS 14.0+ · Apple Silicon · no account, no telemetry

Buy istek · $29