Alternative · Verified October 31, 2026
smee.io alternative
Short answer: smee.io proxies webhook payloads to your localhost over server-sent events; Hooks receives the same webhooks and routes them to AI agents and HTTP targets with retries.
smee.io (from the Probot team) solves local development: expose localhost without a tunnel and watch payloads arrive. Hooks solves what happens next: verify, filter, reshape, and deliver to Grok Bot, T3 Code, Paseo, or Slack — with a log and replay when targets fail.
smee.io alternative: side by side
| Capability | Hooks | smee.io |
|---|---|---|
| Local development | No localhost proxy yet; point sources at hosted endpoints | First-class: channels proxy to localhost via SSE or the smee client |
| AI agent targets | First-class: Grok Bot, T3 Code, Paseo (run id recorded), Slack | None built in; your localhost handler decides what happens |
| Payload templates | Declarative field paths, defaults, and filters per destination | Whatever your local code does with the payload |
| Filtering | Per-destination filter rules evaluated before delivery | Your handler's conditionals |
| Retries | Per-target retry schedule with replayable delivery log | Redelivery while the channel is open; no durable schedule |
| Delivery log | Persistent event log with attempts, rendered requests, replay | Channel feed for recent payloads, no long-term history |
| Pricing | Hobby free (10,000 events/mo), Pro $1/mo billed annually ($10/yr, 250,000 events/mo), Scale custom | Free community service for development use |
| Self-hosting | Hosted service only | Open channel protocol; run your own forwarder if needed |
Free webhook proxy to localhost built by the Probot team.
Best for: developing webhook handlers on localhost.
Choose Hooks when
- Local prototyping is done and the handler must run unattended in production.
- Failures need retries, alerting history, and one-click replay — not a re-sent curl.
- Non-engineers need to see deliveries without reading localhost terminal output.
Choose smee.io when
- You are building the handler right now and need payloads on localhost in seconds.
- The webhook integration is a dev-only spike that may never ship.
- You want zero accounts and zero setup between the provider and your machine.
Where Hooks falls short
No tool fits every team. These are the honest gaps in this matchup — if one is a deal-breaker, the other option is the right call.
- No localhost proxy: local iteration means pointing the source at a hosted endpoint or using a tunnel beside Hooks.
- smee.io is free for dev while Hooks paid tiers start when Hobby limits bite — keep dev traffic on smee.
- Debugging raw payloads is faster in a channel feed than in a production delivery log.
Frequently asked questions
Do Hooks and smee.io compete?
Barely — they cover different halves. Develop against smee.io channels on localhost, then point the provider at a Hooks endpoint for staging and production. Many teams keep both.
Can I still debug payloads with Hooks?
Yes: the event log stores the raw body and headers, and test events let you replay shapes without touching the provider. It is not as instant as a smee channel, but it is persistent and shareable.
Is there a local-forwarding CLI?
Not yet — a local dev relay CLI is on the roadmap. Until then, use smee.io or a tunnel for localhost iteration and Hooks for everything after.
Which is cheaper for development?
smee.io is a free community service, ideal for dev. Hooks Hobby is free (10,000 events/mo), so dev plus light staging usually costs nothing; production volume moves to Pro.
Sources
Every fact above traces to one of these pages, last checked on October 31, 2026.
- smee.iohttps://smee.io
- Hookdeck on RequestBin alternativeshttps://hookdeck.com/webhooks/platforms/requestbin-alternatives
- Hooks documentationhttps://hooks.events/docs
- Hooks pricinghttps://hooks.events/pricing