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MockBase vs Mockoon
A genuinely good free desktop app — as long as local, or paying for Cloud, works for you.
Mockoon is a free, open-source desktop application (Electron-based) for defining and running mock APIs locally. It's one of the most established tools in this space, with a mature UI, OpenAPI import/export, and a scripting layer (data buckets, templating helpers) for more advanced setups.
| Feature | MockBase | Mockoon |
|---|---|---|
| Hosted endpoint, nothing to install | Live HTTPS endpoint in one click | Desktop app; hosting requires paid Cloud add-on |
| Usable without creating an account | 1 mock, 4 routes, no account needed | No account needed to run it locally |
| Conditional matching (header, query, body) | 5 operators, priority ordering, path params | Rules by header, query, and body |
| Dynamic response templating | Sandboxed Jinja2 — request data, UUIDs, timestamps | Handlebars-based helpers, not Jinja2 |
| Automatic stateful CRUD | One toggle — full GET/POST/PUT/PATCH/DELETE lifecycle | Data buckets exist, but CRUD logic is hand-wired |
| Random failure injection | Configurable rate + status code, per route | No built-in probabilistic failure rate |
| OpenAPI import & export | Import a spec into routes, export routes back to a spec | Strong, well-supported import/export |
| Record & replay a real API | Proxies unmatched requests, captures them as routes | No built-in record-and-replay proxy |
| Live, remote request inspector | WebSocket stream: method, path, headers, body, latency, IP | Local request logs in the app, not a remote stream |
What Mockoon is good at
- Completely free and open-source for local use — no account, no quota, ever
- A polished desktop UI for hand-building detailed mock configurations
- OpenAPI import and export are first-class, well-supported features
- Runs fully offline, useful for air-gapped or privacy-sensitive environments
Where it differs from MockBase
- Mockoon's core product is a desktop app you install and run yourself — there's no shared URL a teammate, CI job, or mobile device can hit unless you also pay for Mockoon Cloud (plans start around $15/month with tiered request quotas).
- State across requests (data buckets) and CRUD-style behavior are built with templating helpers you wire up yourself, rather than a single toggle that gives a route full create/read/update/delete semantics automatically.
- There's no built-in probabilistic failure injection — you can script specific responses, but not "fail this route 15% of the time" as a one-field setting.
- Because it's a local app, there's no live remote request inspector to share with someone watching from a different machine — you see requests in the app you're already running.
Pricing
The desktop app is free and open-source, permanently. Mockoon Cloud (hosting, cross-device sync, AI-generated endpoints) is a separate paid add-on starting at roughly $15/month for a Solo plan with a capped number of instances and monthly requests.
Choose MockBase if
- You need a URL a teammate, mobile app, or CI pipeline can hit today, without installing anything
- You want stateful CRUD, chaos injection, and templating without hand-wiring helper scripts
- You want to watch requests arrive live, from a browser, without the app running on your machine
Choose Mockoon if
- Everything happens on one machine and a shared URL was never the point
- You want a fully offline tool with zero dependency on anyone else's server
- You're comfortable scripting your own dynamic/stateful behavior with Mockoon's helpers
Pricing, limits, and features for Mockoon were checked against its own pricing and documentation pages at the time of writing and may have changed since — see its current pricing page for the latest numbers. MockBase is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Mockoon.