A self-hosted Appetize / BrowserStack alternative for mobile QA teams

Run iOS simulators and Android emulators in any browser — no toolchain setup, no device management, no cloud uploads.
App data never leaves your network.

📖 Docs  ·  🚀 Quick Start  ·  🎥 Demo

new-demo.mp4

v0.x: tapflow is under active development. Breaking changes may appear in minor versions until v1.0.0. See ROADMAP for the full plan.

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Why tapflow?

If you work on a mobile product, you've probably seen this.

Physical devices are never enough. Covering every OS version is even harder — iOS doesn't support downgrading, so maintaining a range of versions means managing a pool of locked devices, which is overhead nobody wants.

But the bigger friction is access. Simulators only run on a developer's Mac, behind complex developer toolchains. Anyone on the team who isn't a mobile developer has to ask one every single time they need to verify something:

Server / FE developer — "How do I install the sandbox build to check what was deployed?"

Product manager — "I keep having to install and remove different versions just to compare behavior."

Designer — "I need to check the layout across screen sizes, but I don't have the right devices."

Cloud simulator services exist. But uploading internal app builds to an external service — and paying monthly fees for simulators already running on Macs you own — was never something we wanted to do.

So we built tapflow.

Solution	Problem
Appetize / BrowserStack	Expensive — app data leaves your network
Physical devices	Cost, loss, management overhead
Xcode / Android Studio	Every QA member needs their own Mac + full toolchain setup
tapflow	Use the Mac you already own — data stays on-prem, whole team does QA from a browser

Features

tapflow focuses on:

• Zero setup for QA — any browser, no toolchain. Designers, PMs, and server devs test without asking a mobile developer.
• Data on-premises — app binaries and session recordings never leave your network.
• Your existing Mac — no new hardware, no monthly cloud subscription.
• API-first — REST endpoints and PATs built in, ready for CI/CD and AI agent workflows.

What's included:

• iOS & Android streaming — ~30 fps, no additional app required on the device
• Touch, swipe & pinch — real-time input forwarded to the simulator
• Deeplink — jump directly to any screen from the QA toolbar, no manual navigation
• Keyboard shortcuts — simulator toolbar actions without leaving the keyboard
• App Center — upload .app.zip / .apk, track builds by status (Backlog / In Progress / Done / Rejected)
• Session recordings — record and share QA sessions, retained 72 hours
• Screenshot REST endpoint — GET /api/v1/sessions/:sessionId/screenshot for CI and AI agents
• Mac resource monitoring — CPU & RAM per agent, spot overloaded hosts before assigning sessions
• Team management — invite links, roles (Admin / Developer / QA / Viewer), Personal Access Tokens
• MCP Server (experimental) — @tapflowio/mcp-server lets Claude Code and other LLM agents control simulators as native tools.

How it works

Browser (your team)  ←─ WebSocket ─→  Relay Server  ←─ WebSocket (outbound) ─→  Mac Agent
                                    (Linux / Mac)                           (iOS · Android)

1. The Mac Agent connects outbound to the relay — no inbound firewall rules needed.
2. Anyone on the team opens the dashboard in any browser and sees all available devices.
3. Touch events are forwarded in real time; the screen streams back to the browser.
4. The relay also serves the dashboard SPA on the same port — no separate web server needed.

Quick Start

1. Install

npm install -g tapflow
# or: yarn global add tapflow  |  pnpm add -g tapflow

2. Start relay + agent

tapflow start
# ✓ Relay started on http://localhost:4000
# ✓ iOS Agent connected (3 simulators available)

This starts both the relay and the agent on the same Mac (local mode).

3. Create the first admin account

tapflow init
# ? Admin email: admin@yourteam.com
# ? Password: ********
# ✓ Admin account created

4. Open the dashboard

Navigate to http://localhost:4000 and sign in with the account you just created.

Having issues? Run tapflow doctor to auto-diagnose Node.js, Xcode, adb, and other prerequisites.

Requirements

Component	Requirements
Relay server	Node.js ≥ 20, any OS (Linux/macOS), ~512 MB RAM
iOS Agent	macOS, Xcode with iOS Simulator Runtime, Node.js ≥ 20
Android Agent	macOS, Android SDK (adb in $PATH or $ANDROID_HOME set), AVD with google_apis/arm64-v8a (android-34), Node.js ≥ 20
Browser (QA)	Any modern browser — Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge

Self-Hosting

Local (single Mac)

Relay and agent on the same machine — ideal for a single developer or small team.

tapflow start

Team (separate relay server)

Run the relay on a Linux server or dedicated Mac. Each Mac with simulators runs the agent.

Relay server:

# Recommended: PM2 for automatic restarts
npm install -g pm2 tapflow
JWT_SECRET=$(openssl rand -hex 32) pm2 start tapflow --name relay -- relay start
pm2 save && pm2 startup

Each Mac agent:

tapflow agent start --relay wss://your-relay-url

For nginx / Caddy reverse proxy setup and external access, see Self-Hosting the Relay.

CLI Reference

Command	Description
tapflow start	Start relay + agent together (local mode)
tapflow relay start	Start relay only
tapflow agent start --relay <url>	Start agent and connect to a relay
tapflow init	Create the first admin account
tapflow doctor	Diagnose environment (Node, Xcode, adb…)
tapflow devices	List available simulators and emulators
tapflow boot <name|udid>	Boot a simulator or emulator
tapflow status	Show connected agents, devices, active sessions
tapflow reset	Shut down all simulators and emulators
tapflow logs	Show recent relay log entries

Full reference → CLI docs

Documentation

www.tapflow.dev

Getting Started

• Introduction
• Quick Start
• Requirements

Setup

• Self-Hosting the Relay
• Agent Setup
• Uploading Builds (CI/CD)
• Scaling Mac Resources

Dashboard

• First-time Setup
• Dashboard Overview

AI Agent

• MCP Server (experimental)

Reference

• CLI Reference
• Configuration
• REST API

Troubleshooting

Development

Requirements: Node.js ≥ 20, pnpm ≥ 9

git clone https://github.com/jo-duchan/tapflow.git
cd tapflow
pnpm install
pnpm dev

See CONTRIBUTING.md for branch strategy, commit conventions, and architecture overview.

License

MIT — Copyright © 2025-present tapflow contributors

tapflow bundles scrcpy-server (Apache-2.0) for Android screen streaming. See NOTICE for full attribution.