Localhost

A calm desktop app that turns the processes and ports on your machine into projects and services you can read at a glance.

_{Localhost on Windows 11, with a dev server it started and an API it found running.}

After a day of work you have a dozen terminal tabs, a database you installed months ago and containers from three Compose files, and you no longer know what owns port 3000. Localhost reads what is running, works out which project each process belongs to and what it is, and shows it as a short list: shop › frontend › Next.js on localhost:3000. Select a service to see its health, logs, environment and process tree, and to open, restart or stop it.

Contents

• Download
• What you get
• Getting started
• Everyday use
• Privacy and security
• Troubleshooting
• Building from source
• How it works
• Project structure
• Contributing
• License

Download

Get the latest version from the releases page.

Platform	File	Requirements
macOS	Localhost-<version>-mac.dmg	macOS 12 or later, Apple silicon or Intel
Windows	Localhost-Setup-<version>.exe	Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit
Linux	Localhost-<version>.AppImage or .deb	A 64-bit desktop distribution

What you get

• Projects instead of PIDs. Localhost groups processes by repository and package folder, so a monorepo shows shop › frontend, backend and postgres rather than six node processes.
• It knows what it is looking at. About 100 tools are recognized, from Next.js, Vite and Django to PostgreSQL, Redis and Mailpit. Project dependencies refine the guess, and the inspector tells you why it thinks so.
• Ports explain themselves. Type 3000 in the search field to see what owns the port, or read that it is free. Ports with more than one listener are marked.
• Health, not only presence. A short request to each new service tells you whether it actually responds, with the HTTP status and latency.
• Logs without Terminal. Services you start from Localhost and Docker containers stream their output into a fast log viewer with colors, filtering, pause and timestamps.
• Start what your project already defines. package.json scripts, Deno tasks, cargo run, Django and docker compose up appear under Start, using the package manager your lockfile names.
• Conflicts you can fix in place. When a service fails because its port is taken, Localhost shows who holds the port and offers to stop it.
• Careful with destructive actions. Stop sends the equivalent of Control-C. Force quit asks first and says how many processes end. Stopping a service Localhost started can be undone.
• Secrets stay hidden. API keys, tokens and passwords in environments, arguments and logs are masked before they reach the window.
• Quiet and fast. The window refreshes every 2 seconds while visible and every 10 seconds in the background. The Rust engine that does the work uses about 10 MB of memory.
• Light, dark and Russian. Follows your system theme or a fixed one, with reduced motion if you prefer. The interface is available in English and Russian.

Getting started

1. Install Localhost and open it.
2. Your running dev servers, databases and containers appear grouped by project. System services stay hidden until you ask for them.
3. Select a service. Its page shows addresses, command, folder and resource use, with tabs for logs, environment and processes.
4. To run something, press Start next to a project and choose a script. The first time, Localhost shows the exact command and asks you to confirm.
5. To keep a project in the list while nothing runs, open its ⋯ menu and choose Keep in Localhost, or press + in the toolbar and choose its folder.

Everyday use

Task	How
Find what uses a port	Type the port number in the search field
Open a service in the browser	Click its address, or press Ctrl+Enter or ⌘↩ on its page
See logs	Open the service and choose Logs
Capture logs for a process started elsewhere	Restart it. Localhost stops it and runs the same command in the same folder
Stop a service	Stop in the inspector, or right-click the row
See everything on one screen	Switch to Ports
Open a terminal or editor in the project	Right-click the project or service
Go back to the list	Esc

Keyboard shortcuts: /, Ctrl+F or ⌘F search, Ctrl+R or ⌘R refresh, Ctrl+O or ⌘O add a project, Ctrl+, or ⌘, settings, Ctrl+Backspace or ⌘⌫ stop the open service.

Privacy and security

• Nothing leaves your machine. Localhost has no telemetry, no analytics and no network access beyond the local services it checks.
• Local probes only. Health checks connect to localhost and only to services that are not system services. Turn them off in Settings.
• No administrator rights. Processes that belong to another user or to the system are shown but cannot be controlled.
• No shell. Commands run as a program and an argument list, never as a shell string.
• Trust per project. Scripts from a project run only after you confirm the first one.
• Secrets are masked in Rust, before anything reaches the window. Revealing a value is an explicit action that reads only that variable.
• A sandboxed window. The interface cannot reach the network or your files. It talks to the engine only through a fixed set of commands.

Details are in docs/architecture.md.

Troubleshooting

• A service shows no logs. Localhost can read output only from services it starts and from containers. Use Restart to run the service under Localhost.
• Stop did not work. Some programs ignore Control-C. After six seconds Localhost offers Force quit.
• A script fails with "couldn't find pnpm". On macOS and Linux, Localhost reads PATH from your login shell. Make sure the tool is on PATH in a new terminal, then restart Localhost.
• A service on Windows shows as "WSL". The process runs inside WSL. Windows only sees the port forward, so Localhost cannot show the process inside.
• Containers are missing. Localhost looks for the Docker socket or named pipe. If you use a custom location, set DOCKER_HOST before opening Localhost.

Building from source

You need Rust 1.95 or later and Node.js 24.

npm install

npm run dev

npm run pack:win

npm run dev builds the engine in debug mode and opens the app. npm run pack:win, npm run pack:mac and npm run pack:linux build the release engine and write installers to release/.

Checks:

cargo fmt --all --check && cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets -- -D warnings && cargo test --workspace

npm run lint && npm run typecheck

To print what the engine sees without the window:

cargo run -p localhost-core --example snapshot

How it works

Localhost is Rust first. The localhost-engine binary reads the process table with sysinfo, reads listening sockets straight from the OS (GetExtendedTcpTable on Windows, /proc/net/tcp on Linux and libproc on macOS) and talks to Docker over its socket. It groups processes into services by walking up the process tree, matches them against a signature table, finds project roots from manifests and Git, and publishes a snapshot every 2 seconds. Electron starts the engine as a child process and exchanges JSON lines with it over stdin and stdout. The window is a sandboxed React interface built on the Kumo design system.

Read docs/research.md for the decisions and the alternatives considered, and docs/architecture.md for the modules, protocol, security model and platform differences.

Project structure

crates/localhost-core/    Engine library: processes, sockets, detection, health, logs, Docker
crates/localhost-engine/  Engine binary that Electron talks to over stdio
src/main/                 Electron main process: window, menus, dialogs, notifications
src/preload/              The window.localhost bridge
src/renderer/             React interface
src/shared/               Types, API contract and translations
scripts/                  Build and packaging scripts
docs/                     Research and architecture
branding/                 Icon source and 1024 px PNG

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome.

• Keep logic in localhost-core and keep Electron and React presentational.
• New tools go in crates/localhost-core/src/detect/signatures.rs with a test in detect/mod.rs.
• Every user-facing string goes through tr() and gets a Russian entry in src/shared/locales/ru.ts.
• Run the checks above before opening a pull request.

License

MIT © 2026 Liwidale

Localhost is not affiliated with Docker, Vercel, Apple, Microsoft, Electron or any tool it recognizes. Their names belong to their owners.

_{ゝ made by liwidale}