grpcmd vs grpcmock-go

grpcmd is a free command-line tool for working with gRPC services on Linux, macOS, and Windows. It can use reflection to find available services and methods, describe a method’s request and response messages, and make calls. Requests and responses can stream, with headers, data, and trailers included in output. Users who do not want to rely on reflection can instead provide.proto files and import search paths. The tool can also start a gRPC server implementing grpcmd.GrpcmdService with reflection, and its documentation covers shell completion for Bash, Zsh, fish, and PowerShell. A related tool, grpcmd-script, lets users define endpoint tests in JavaScript and assert response headers, data messages, and trailers; it is distributed as a binary and does not require Node.js. The separate grpcmd-gui desktop app supports reflection-based method lookup, request headers, response headers and trailers, JSON request templates, streaming, and themes. GUI downloads are available for macOS, Windows, and Linux, including amd64 and arm64 builds. grpcmd is listed at free; grpcmd-script is listed at $9 a year with early-bird pricing.

grpcmock-go is a free, MIT-licensed Go module providing gRPC testing utilities. It helps tests mock gRPC servers, configure expectations for methods, headers, and payloads, and invoke client calls. Supported methods include unary, client-streaming, server-streaming, and bidirectional-streaming patterns. Request matching can use exact values, regular expressions, JSON, or custom matchers. Mock responses may return payloads, errors, or custom-handler results, and streaming client invocations can use custom handlers. Services can be registered from generated Go code, service instances, or individual methods when generated code is unavailable. The project recommends MockServerWithBufConn for in-memory application testing, with examples using bufconn listeners and context dialers. Installation uses `go get go.nhat.io/grpcmock`, and Go 1.25 or later is required. GitHub lists v0.34.0, released December 12, 2025, as the latest release. The Open-source Go module plan costs nothing.