BloomRPC Extended vs grpcui

BloomRPC Extended is a free desktop GUI client for exploring and querying gRPC services on Linux, macOS, and Windows. It is a maintained fork of the original BloomRPC, which the project says was archived in January 2023. Native calls include unary, server streaming, client streaming, and bidirectional modes; gRPC-Web and server reflection are also supported. Users can import and manage .proto files, manage environments, and edit metadata. TLS and SSL connection security are available. The interface provides draggable service tabs, search and filtering, grouping by service, an overflow menu, and a close-all control. Packaged builds use CodeMirror 6 for syntax highlighting, according to the project. Downloads include macOS DMG, Windows EXE, and Linux AppImage or DEB. Homebrew and Scoop installation instructions are listed for macOS and Windows. GitHub Issues is the reported support route. The repository lists LGPL-3.0-or-later licensing; source builds require Bun v1.0 or later.

grpcui is a free, open-source command-line tool for interacting with gRPC servers through a browser-based interface. It is aimed at gRPC APIs rather than REST APIs and can discover service schemas through server reflection, .proto source files, or compiled protoset files. Its interface builds dynamic forms for protobuf messages, including well-known types, oneofs, and maps, and also accepts a complete JSON request body. grpcui supports RPC methods including streaming, then displays response headers, messages or errors, trailers, and readable HTML tables. It connects to plaintext and TLS servers, including mutual TLS with client certificates. Streaming requests have a constraint: they must be constructed all at once, so bidirectional streams cannot be handled interactively like they can with grpcurl. The project also provides Go packages for embedding a form or complete web UI in a Go HTTP server. Installation is documented through Homebrew on macOS or Linux, and through the Go install command. It is released under the MIT license.