Compare

Bifurc vs Charles Proxy

Charles is a paid HTTP debugging proxy that runs on macOS, Windows and Linux. Developers use it to watch traffic, decrypt HTTPS with SSL Proxying, and change what an app sees with tools like Map Local, Map Remote and Rewrite.

Bifurc covers the same ground with a different starting point: it is built around the services on your own machine. It gives them names, proxies and captures their traffic, mocks their responses, and sends requests to them in every protocol they speak. If you want a free Charles Proxy alternative that is also an API client, here is how they line up.

At a glance

	Bifurc	Charles
Price	Free	Paid licence, with a free trial
Platforms	Windows and Linux	macOS, Windows and Linux
App	Native Rust desktop app and CLI	Java desktop app
Capture and inspect HTTP and HTTPS	Yes	Yes
Decrypt HTTPS	TLS interception with a local root certificate	SSL Proxying
Serve a response you define	Mocks	Map Local
Send a request to another host	Proxy rules	Map Remote
Change requests and responses	Proxy rule scripts	Rewrite
Custom `*.localhost` domains	Yes, built-in reverse proxy	No
Saved requests for REST, GraphQL, gRPC, SOAP	Yes	Repeat and Compose for HTTP
WebSocket, SSE, Socket.IO and MCP clients	Yes	No
Environments and encrypted vaults	Yes	No
Workspaces as files in git	Yes	No
CLI for scripts and CI	Yes	No

Charles tools and their Bifurc equivalents

Map Local → Mocks. A mock answers a matching request itself. It can replace the whole response or only the status, the body, some headers or the timing, and leave the rest of the real response alone. Mocks support regex matching, variables, server-sent events and chunked streaming. See Advanced Mocking.
Map Remote → Proxy rules. A rule matches an exact URL or a regular expression and sends it to a mapping or any other target, for example sending a production API's traffic to the build running on your machine. See Proxy Rules & Scripts.
Rewrite → Rule scripts. Instead of a list of rewrite operations, a rule can run a script on the request before it is forwarded and on the response before it is returned.
SSL Proxying → TLS interception. Bifurc generates a root certificate on your machine, or uses one you import, and decrypts HTTPS through the forward proxy. The certificate and its key never leave your computer. See TLS Interception.

What Bifurc adds

Names for local services. api.localhost instead of localhost:3000, with no hosts file to edit, and HTTPS for those names with the same local certificate. See Localhost Domain Mapping.
A full API client. Write and save REST, GraphQL, gRPC, SOAP, WebSocket, SSE, Socket.IO and MCP requests, with scripts and tests, and run a folder of them at once. See Protocol Support.
Workspaces in git. Mappings, rules, mocks and requests are files with history that you can publish to GitHub and import elsewhere.
A browser extension for Chrome and Firefox that toggles proxying and adds a Bifurc tab to DevTools.

When Charles is the better choice

You work on macOS, which Bifurc does not support yet.
You need network throttling to simulate a slow connection, or breakpoints that pause a request so you can edit it by hand before it continues. Bifurc changes traffic with rules, scripts and mock delays instead.
You debug a phone or another device by pointing it at the proxy over your network.

When Bifurc is the better choice

You want the Charles workflow, mapping, rewriting and decrypting, for free, together with an API client.
Your work is on services running locally, and you want them named, captured and mocked from one place.
You want your mocks and rules in version control, shared with your team as files.

Moving from Charles

Install Bifurc from the download page.
Generate or import a root certificate in Settings and turn on HTTPS interception.
Recreate Map Remote entries as proxy rules, Map Local entries as mocks, and Rewrite sets as rule scripts.
Send your browser through Bifurc with the Bifurc Companion extension and check the traffic in Capture.