Proxycept vs Inspectr: hosted shared proxy vs local-first MCP inspector

Inspectr is a sharp local-first tool for inspecting HTTP traffic, and it made an early, smart bet on MCP-awareness: decoding the AI-agent traffic that most proxies still treat as opaque JSON. If you're comparing it with Proxycept, this page lays out the real trade-offs honestly. We're the newer entrant on the MCP axis, and we're not going to pretend otherwise.

They're built on different assumptions, and the right pick depends less on a feature checklist than on where the proxy runs and who needs to see the traffic.

Short version:

• Inspectr is a local-first traffic inspector you run yourself (npx @inspectr/inspectr): a single binary/CLI on your machine, with a public tunnel (--expose) to reach a local server, and MCP decoding that still leads on the streaming (SSE) transport and stdio/server exposure. Zero account to start.
• Proxycept is a hosted, shared proxy endpoint. The proxy runs on a server, so any number of devices, machines, and CI runners point at one endpoint and read captures in one shared web console, with team workspaces, RBAC, and audit. On MCP it decodes JSON-RPC over HTTP (non-streaming) today, groups a conversation by Mcp-Session-Id, and shows per-tool stats (counts, p50/p95 latency, error rate), with streaming (SSE) decode on the roadmap.

If you're a solo developer who wants the fullest MCP view on your own machine right now, including streaming (SSE) decode, Inspectr is a strong tool and may be all you need. If you want MCP calls (decoded, grouped by conversation, with per-tool stats, alongside all your other API traffic) visible in a proxy your whole team and CI already share, that's the gap Proxycept is built for.

Where each one wins

Inspectr's edge: it's local-first, and further along on MCP depth.

• Single-binary + CLI, local-first. npx and you're inspecting: no account, no hosted dependency. For a solo developer that "install and go" beats "sign up and configure an endpoint."
• Outbound tunnel (--expose). Because it runs locally, it can expose a local server to the internet: reach a local MCP server, receive webhooks, share a running app. That's a genuine capability Proxycept does not offer.
• Streaming + exposure lead on MCP. It decodes the streaming / Streamable-HTTP (SSE) MCP transport, and can expose an MCP server (stdio/tunnel). Those are the parts of the MCP surface it's still ahead of us on. (We've since closed the gap on decode, per-tool stats, and session grouping. See the MCP section below.)
• Zero-account quick start. Nothing to provision to try it.

Proxycept's edge: it's an endpoint, not a local binary, and a full team QA proxy around the MCP view.

• One hosted proxy (proxycept.com:8443 + per-profile credentials) that any device, machine, or CI runner points at, with no per-machine data-plane install.
• Shared, multi-user captures. Traffic from everyone's clients (including decoded MCP calls) lands in the same web console under Sessions. A teammate can open the exact tools/call you're debugging.
• MCP decode, grouping, and stats, team-shared. An "MCP only" filter groups a conversation's calls by Mcp-Session-Id into a per-session trace, and a per-tool stats panel (counts, p50/p95 latency, error rate) sits over the decoded calls, all inside the shared, RBAC'd console rather than on one laptop.
• Team accounts with roles (RBAC), shared workspaces, and an audit trail on paid tiers.
• Intercept and edit on the fly. Hold a request or response by host/path/method and change it in flight, not just capture-and-override.
• Mocks, fault injection, polymorphism. A per-profile mock server (OpenAPI / Postman import), fault injection, and request polymorphism, in the same tool as the capture.
• Multi-device + CI from one console. A GitHub Actions job or a device lab routes through the same endpoint with credentials. No desktop session required.

Neither is a knock on the other: they're different shapes. Inspectr optimizes for one developer on one machine with streaming (SSE) decode and a tunnel. Proxycept optimizes for many clients, shared visibility, and a full team QA proxy that now decodes MCP too, with per-tool stats and session grouping in the shared console.

MCP support, stated precisely

This is the axis people will actually compare us on, so here's the unvarnished version.

What Proxycept decodes today: MCP JSON-RPC 2.0 over HTTP: the request and non-streaming JSON responses between an MCP client (Claude, ChatGPT, any MCP host) and a remote / HTTP-transport MCP server routed through the proxy. In Sessions you get an MCP badge, a compact summary (e.g. tools/call → get_weather), and a detail panel with method, tool name, Mcp-Session-Id, JSON-RPC request id, and error code + message. An "MCP only" filter groups a conversation's calls by Mcp-Session-Id into a per-session trace (with a "No session id" bucket), and a per-tool stats panel shows counts, p50/p95 latency, and error rate per tool when the session has MCP traffic.

What Proxycept does not do yet (and won't imply it does):

• No streaming (SSE) decode. text/event-stream MCP responses are captured raw but not decoded into tool/method detail. On the roadmap; not shipped. Inspectr decodes this today.
• No MCP-server mocking or exposure, and no token/cost decode. Inspectr offers MCP-server exposure; we don't.
• No stdio-transport visibility: a locally-launched stdio MCP server never crosses an HTTP proxy, so neither tool sees it that way; Proxycept sees HTTP-transport MCP only.

The honest framing: we decode MCP JSON-RPC over HTTP today (grouped by conversation, with per-tool stats) in a hosted, team-shared session view; streaming (SSE) decode and stdio/server exposure are where Inspectr is still ahead. If deep single-machine MCP analysis with SSE is the whole job, Inspectr is further along on that axis. If you want MCP calls to live in the same shared, RBAC'd proxy as the rest of your team's API traffic, that's us. There's a full walkthrough in Inspect MCP / AI-agent traffic with Proxycept.

Comparison table

(Inspectr capabilities reflect publicly documented information at the time of writing; check inspectr.dev for its current feature set and licensing.)

A note on fairness: on the MCP axis, Inspectr is still ahead on the parts that need its local model. It decodes the streaming (SSE) transport and can expose an MCP server, neither of which we do today. We've closed the gap on decode, per-tool stats, and session grouping. But Proxycept's bet isn't "more MCP features than Inspectr." It's a different deployment model (a hosted, shared, RBAC'd proxy your whole team and CI point at) that also decodes MCP JSON-RPC over HTTP, groups it by conversation, and stats it. Compare on that axis, not on who has the longer MCP feature list.

The core difference, stated plainly

With Inspectr, the proxy is a program on your machine. That's a clean, self-contained setup for one person, and it's exactly why it ships a tunnel: a local tool sometimes needs to reach the internet, or be reached. It's also why sharing across a team or wiring it into CI is a different exercise: there's no shared, always-on place for the traffic to live.

With Proxycept, the proxy is a hosted endpoint. Devices, machines, and CI runners all point at the same host:port with per-profile credentials, and every capture (MCP calls included) shows up in one shared web console. Onboarding another device or teammate is handing out a credential, not installing another copy. Reachability is solved by the endpoint being hosted in the first place, which is why we don't need, and don't build, a tunnel.

If your work is "me, my machine, the deepest possible MCP view right now, including streaming (SSE)," Inspectr's local model and SSE depth are the better fit. If it's "our team, our device lab, our CI, and we all need to see the same traffic, now with MCP decoded, grouped, and statted too," that's Proxycept.

When to pick which

Pick Inspectr if:

• You're a solo developer who wants the fullest MCP view today, including streaming (SSE) decode and MCP-server exposure, the parts that need a local tool.
• You need an outbound tunnel to reach a local MCP server or receive webhooks.
• You prefer a local, zero-account single binary you run yourself.
• Your work lives on one machine and team sharing isn't the priority.

Pick Proxycept if:

• You need multiple devices, machines, or CI to share one proxy endpoint, with MCP calls decoded in the same shared view.
• Your team needs to see the same captured traffic, with roles (RBAC) and an audit trail.
• You want intercept-and-edit, mocks, fault injection, and polymorphism in the same tool as the capture.
• You'd rather not install a proxy on every machine: onboarding should be a credential, not a setup.
• Non-streaming MCP JSON-RPC over HTTP is enough for your servers today, and you value the hosted/team model over the deepest single-machine MCP analysis.

Honestly? Some teams could use both. A developer runs Inspectr locally for deep, single-machine MCP analysis with streaming (SSE) decode, while the team standardizes on Proxycept as the shared endpoint for device labs, cross-team visibility, CI, and a first-class MCP view (decoded, grouped, statted) everyone can open. They solve different problems and coexist fine.

Curious where the hosted model fits your setup? Proxycept has a free tier (one workspace, live capture, intercept/edit, a per-profile mock server, and the MCP-aware Sessions view), enough to point an MCP client at a shared endpoint and watch tools/call → … decode for yourself. No card required.