Introduction
tapflow lets your entire team run mobile QA directly in the browser — no developer tools, no device management, no external cloud.
Why tapflow?
| Solution | Problem |
|---|---|
| Appetize / BrowserStack | Expensive, app data leaves your network |
| Physical devices | Cost, loss, management overhead |
| Xcode / Android Studio directly | Every team member needs their own Mac + Xcode or Android Studio setup |
| tapflow | Use infra you already own, data stays on-prem |
In short, tapflow is a self-hosted, open-source alternative to cloud testing services like Appetize and BrowserStack App Live — the same browser-based mobile QA, but builds and test data stay on infrastructure you already own.
How it works
- A Mac Agent connects outbound to the relay — no inbound firewall rules needed.
- Team opens the dashboard in any browser and sees all available devices.
- Touch events are forwarded in real time; the screen streams back to the browser.
Streaming format by platform
- iOS Simulator: H.264 stream (~30 fps; JPEG fallback on older browsers)
- Android Emulator: H.264 stream (~30 fps)
Visual quality and latency may differ between the two. Resolution and decoder adapt to each viewer's connection — see Streaming Quality.
Key concepts
- Relay — the central server. Routes traffic between agents and browsers. Run once.
- Agent — runs on Mac (iOS and Android). Connects to the relay.
- Dashboard — the React SPA served by the relay. No separate deploy needed. Includes App Center (build management), Mac Resources (agent monitoring), and more.
- MCP Server — exposes tapflow as a tool for LLM agents. Claude Code and other MCP-compatible agents can control simulators directly. → MCP Server guide