A Mockoon alternative for when the mock needs to be a URL

Credit where due: Mockoon's desktop app is excellent. It's free, open source, works offline, has no request caps, and its response rules, Handlebars templating, and proxy/record mode are genuinely rich. If you're mocking an API for yourself, on your own machine, keep using it — this page is not trying to talk you out of that.

The catch is one word: localhost. A Mockoon mock lives on the machine running it. The moment anyone or anything else needs to hit it — a teammate, your phone, CI, a deployed frontend preview, a webhook from a third-party service — you have two options (verified from the official pricing page, July 2026):

Mockoon Cloud — the hosted product. There is no free tier: the Team plan is $100/month (tax excl., billed annually) for 3 cloud-deployed mocks, 100,000 calls/month and a 10 req/s limit; the web app requires a paid plan too.
Self-host the CLI — genuinely free and well-documented, if you want to provision, run, and babysit a server for your mock.

Mockbird is the third option: a hosted, stateful, seeded mock REST API in one curl. No signup, no desktop app, no server to run, free — 10,000 requests per project per day.

The 60-second switch

# one curl, no signup — a whole seeded e-commerce backend
curl -X POST https://HOST/api/projects \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' -d '{"name":"shop","preset":"ecommerce"}'
# → {"id":"abc123","adminKey":"KEY", ...}   ← save both

curl https://HOST/m/abc123/products?limit=3
# → seeded products, realistic fields, CORS on, writes persist

Prefer clicking? This link creates the same project in your browser — no account. And if you already have a Mockoon environment: Mockoon can export it as an OpenAPI spec (File → Export), and Mockbird imports OpenAPI directly — POST the spec to /api/projects/import or paste it at /app#import and your routes come up hosted and seeded.

Mockoon concepts → Mockbird

Mockoon	Mockbird	Notes
Environment	project	one URL prefix per project: `/m/<id>/…`
CRUD route + data bucket	a resource	full CRUD generated: list, get, create, update, delete, relations, filtering, pagination
Data bucket state (in-memory — resets on restart, not saved to the data file)	records in a real database	writes persist across days; reset deliberately with snapshots or reseed, not by restarting
Route with a templated response	custom routes	`{{query.x}}` `{{params.x}}` `{{body.x}}` `{{uuid}}` `{{now}}`, any path/method/content-type
Response rules (error cases, latency)	query params on any URL	`?mock_status=503`, `?mock_delay=2000`, random failures `?mock_chaos=0.3`, latency jitter `?mock_jitter=100-1500` — guide
Templating helpers / fake data	seeded realistic data	faker-style generators per field type; presets give a whole multi-resource backend in one call
Admin API state purge	named snapshots + restore	save/restore whole data states; pin one per request with `X-Mockbird-Snapshot` — parallel test workers don't race
Logs tab	request inspector	last 50 requests with method, path, query, headers, body — also readable from tests via API
Callbacks	webhooks	HMAC-signed POST on record created/updated/deleted, delivery log included
OpenAPI import/export	same, plus more	import OpenAPI, db.json, CSV, Postman; export OpenAPI, Postman, db.json, TypeScript/Zod
Proxy / record mode	partial: HAR import	no live proxy, but a DevTools HAR export replays your recorded JSON traffic as a hosted mock

Try it in 10 seconds (shared demo, no setup)

# seeded data, field projection
curl 'https://HOST/m/demo/products?limit=2&select=name,price'

# Mockoon-rules-style error & latency testing, as query params
curl -i 'https://HOST/m/demo/products?mock_status=503'
curl 'https://HOST/m/demo/products/1?mock_delay=2000'
curl -i 'https://HOST/m/demo/products?mock_chaos=0.3&mock_jitter=100-800'

# a custom route (like a Mockoon templated route, but hosted)
curl https://HOST/m/demo/health

# stateful: the write persists — no restart wipes it
curl -X POST https://HOST/m/demo/products \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' -d '{"name":"proof","price":9.99}'
# → {"name":"proof","price":9.99,"id":31}  — GET /m/demo/products/31 returns it

All of these run against the shared demo project (resets daily). Everything is plain HTTP — your teammate on Windows, your phone on hotel wifi, and your CI runner all hit the same URL with zero installs.

Honest comparison

	Mockoon desktop/CLI	Mockoon Cloud	Mockbird
Price	free, open source	from $100/month (no free tier)	free while in beta
Hosted URL others can hit	no (localhost, or self-host the CLI yourself)	yes — 3 mocks, 100k calls/month, 10 req/s	yes — 10,000 requests/project/day
Signup / install	desktop install	account + paid plan	none — one curl, claim the project later if you want
Stateful data	data buckets — in-memory, reset on restart	data buckets	persistent database records + snapshots
Realistic seed data	templates + faker helpers (you write them)	same, + AI generation (paid credits)	generated from field types; one-call presets
Response rules engine	excellent — matchers on body/query/headers, sequential/random responses	same	simpler: `mock_status`/`mock_chaos`/custom routes; no body matchers
Proxy / record real traffic	yes (live proxy)	yes (live proxy)	partial — HAR import replays recorded traffic; no live proxy
GraphQL endpoint	no	no	yes, generated from your resources
Mock JWT auth	build it with templates	build it with templates	built in — real signed tokens, protected mode
Works offline	yes	no	no

Written by the Mockbird maker — bias disclosed. Where Mockoon genuinely wins: the desktop app's response rules engine (matchers on body, query, headers, cookies; sequential and random response modes) is far richer than our query params; proxy/record mode can transparently sit in front of a live API, which we can't (our HAR import replays a DevTools recording, but it's not a live proxy); it works offline with no request caps; and the whole thing is open source with a first-class CLI + Docker story if self-hosting is your preference. If your mock only ever needs to exist on your own machine, Mockoon is the better tool and it would be silly to pretend otherwise. If the mock needs to be a URL — teammates, CI, previews, phones, webhooks — that's us, free. Cloud figures ($100/month Team plan, 3 mocks, 100k calls/month, 10 req/s, no free tier, paid-only web app) verified July 2026 from mockoon.com's published pricing page.

Full API reference in the docs. More guides: mock server from an OpenAPI spec · free mock API tools compared · WireMock Cloud alternative · MSW alternative. Create your API →