Inspect

What Inspect does

Inspect (legal entity Inspect DevTools LLC, Delaware) is a privately held, bootstrapped developer tooling company founded in 2020 by Kenneth Auchenberg during COVID-19 quarantine in Seattle, with a registered headquarters in New York and a distributed team of 1-10 employees. The company builds software that enables web and mobile developers to debug Safari and WebViews on iOS, and Chrome and WebViews on Android, from Windows, Linux, or macOS without requiring a Mac. Its core technology is a proprietary Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP) adapter for WebKit that translates Safari's WebKit Remote Debugging Protocol into CDP, packaged into an Electron-based desktop application and an npm-distributed command-line tool. Inspect builds on years of work from the founder's prior projects, ios-webkit-debug-proxy and RemoteDebug, and integrates React DevTools for mobile component-level debugging.

Inspect monetizes through a freemium subscription model introduced in May 2024. Inspect Core is free with a 15-minute-per-day debugging cap; Inspect Pro is $79/year with unlimited debugging and CLI access; Inspect Teams is $99/seat/year with user and team management, auto-scaling seats, and advanced billing. Enterprise customers with 10+ seats can purchase volume licenses with SSO, dedicated support, and custom invoicing via direct sales. The company serves a horizontal base of individual web and mobile developers via product-led growth (direct download, GitHub, documentation, Twitter), and targets engineering teams in larger organizations via the Teams plan, with customer references including Accenture, Microsoft, BBVA, Plaid, Affirm, Eventbrite, Lightspeed, Flipkart, Epicor, Yandex, Ionic, Instacart, Philips, and Gira. The company has not raised external funding and operates primarily on subscription revenue, with infrastructure dependencies on Vercel, Stripe, Clerk, PostHog, and Intercom as named sub-processors under its GDPR-compliant DPA.

Name

Inspect

Legal name

Inspect DevTools LLC

Website

https://inspect.dev

Company type

Private

Founded year

2020

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Inspect (Inspect DevTools LLC) is a bootstrapped developer tools company that builds Chrome DevTools Protocol adapters for debugging Safari and Chrome on iOS and Android from any desktop operating system without requiring a Mac, sold via a freemium subscription model to individual developers and engineering teams.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

New York

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Subscription - Pro Plan: Annual subscription at $79/year providing unlimited iOS and Android debugging, CLI access, priority support, and updates for new iOS versions.
2. Subscription - Teams Plan: Per-user annual subscription at $99/user/year for teams. Includes all Pro features plus user and team management, auto-scaling subscriptions, advanced billing and invoicing.
3. Freemium - Core Plan: Free tier offering 15 minutes of daily debugging on iOS and Android. No Mac required. Allows users to evaluate product before upgrading.
4. Volume/Enterprise Licensing: Volume purchases for 10+ seats with custom pricing, SSO, dedicated support, and custom invoicing for enterprise customers.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

Inspect provides developer tools to debug and inspect mobile-web apps on iOS and Android devices. It offers a standalone desktop DevTools application (Inspect App) and a command-line CLI that expose a Chrome DevTools-based workflow for debugging Safari and WebViews on iOS and Chrome and WebViews on Android from Windows, Linux, or macOS without requiring a Mac. The products are sold via a freemium annual subscription model with Pro and Teams tiers.

Product overview

Inspect is a developer tooling company offering a unified mobile debugging platform consisting of two core products: the Inspect App (a standalone desktop DevTools application) and Inspect CLI (a command-line CDP adapter). Both products share the same underlying WebKit-to-Chrome DevTools Protocol translation layer, enabling developers to use Chrome DevTools to debug iOS Safari, Android Chrome, and WebViews on either platform from Windows, Linux, or macOS without requiring a Mac. The platform is sold through a freemium subscription model with three tiers: Inspect Core (free, 15 min/day), Inspect Pro ($79/year, unlimited), and Inspect Teams ($99/user/year, adds team management and advanced billing). The Inspect CLI is exclusively available to Pro and Teams subscribers.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Inspect CLI: Command-line tool for debugging iOS Safari from VS Code, Cursor, or any CDP-compatible tool
• Inspect App

Products and services

• Inspect App Standalone desktop DevTools application for debugging Safari and WebViews on iOS devices, and Chrome and WebViews on Android devices. Provides Chrome DevTools UI on Windows, Linux, and macOS without requiring a Mac. Supports USB and WiFi connections, DOM inspection, CSS editing, JavaScript debugging, network analysis, and screencasting.
• Inspect CLI Command-line tool providing a Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP) adapter for WebKit on iOS. Enables iOS Safari and WebView debugging from VS Code, Cursor, or any CDP-compatible tool. Installed via npm and designed for CI/CD pipelines and headless debugging workflows.

Quantifiable outcome

• No $799 Mac Mini required for iOS debugging
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers14 records

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration6 records

Feature7 records

Partnerships

Eight partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• Vercel Inc.coreTechnology or Integration · 27 March 2024Cloud infrastructure partner providing application hosting and edge compute services. All Inspect application infrastructure hosted on Vercel.
• Clerk, Inc.coreTechnology or Integration · 27 March 2024Authentication and identity management provider. Manages user authentication and social sign-in for Inspect accounts.
• Stripe, Inc.coreTechnology or Integration · 27 March 2024Billing and payment processing partner. Manages subscriptions, invoicing, and payment collection. Billing data never touches Inspect servers.
• PostHog, Inc.coreTechnology or Integration · 27 March 2024Product analytics provider. Used to understand how the Inspect app is used, which features to improve, and identify bugs.
• Intercom, Inc.coreTechnology or Integration · 27 March 2024Customer support communications platform. Used for in-app chat support and product update emails. Users can unsubscribe at any time.
• Google (Android)coreTechnology or Integration · 5 June 2022Inspect uses Android Debug Bridge (ADB) to detect and communicate with Android devices. Supports debugging Chrome and WebViews on Android.
• ApplecoreTechnology or Integration · 4 June 2022Inspect uses Apple's official iOS drivers provided through iTunes for device communication. Relies on Safari's WebKit Remote Debugging Protocol and iOS Web Inspector functionality. iOS Simulator support via Xcode Command Line Tools (xcrun simctl).
• Google (Chrome DevTools)coreTechnology or IntegrationInspect builds on Chrome DevTools Protocol, using the familiar DevTools front-end UI. CDP adapter maps WebKit protocol to CDP for seamless interoperability.

Scale indicators1 record

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• mitmproxy: Open-source intercepting HTTPS proxy for debugging mobile and web traffic. It competes for the same developer budget on network and WebView debugging, with a stronger emphasis on programmatic/CLI use.
• Proxyman: Native macOS HTTP/network debugging proxy for iOS and Android developers. It competes for the same developer's debugging workflow budget — particularly iOS app developers needing to inspect traffic and WebView behavior.
• ios-webkit-debug-proxy: Google's open-source proxy that bridges Safari's WebKit inspector to a CDP-like interface. Inspect explicitly positions itself as the modern successor to this project, making it the closest technical and conceptual peer.
• Reactotron: Open-source desktop debugging tool for React Native and React apps. It overlaps with Inspect's React DevTools integration for mobile and addresses the same React-on-mobile debugging workflows.
• Charles Proxy: Long-standing HTTP debugging proxy used by mobile and web developers. Like Proxyman, it addresses adjacent debugging use cases (network inspection) for the same iOS/Android developer audience Inspect targets.
• Flipper: Meta's open-source mobile app debugging platform. Flipper targets mobile developers with a plugin-based debugging desktop app, comparable to Inspect's positioning as a desktop debugging tool for mobile (iOS/Android) apps and WebViews.

Others

• Sentry: Application error monitoring and performance debugging platform used by mobile and web developers. Adjacent rather than directly competitive — Sentry focuses on production error tracking while Inspect focuses on development-time debugging — but they serve overlapping developer personas.

Broad incumbents

• Chrome DevTools: Google's browser DevTools suite that Inspect mimics and integrates with via the Chrome DevTools Protocol. Inspect uses CDP as its front-end UI layer, so any native Google improvement to mobile debugging narrows the differentiation gap.
• BrowserStack: Cross-browser and real-device testing platform used by web and mobile developers. It addresses a broader testing/debugging workflow that overlaps with Inspect's mobile web debugging use case, especially at enterprise scale.
• Safari Web Inspector: Apple's native iOS Safari debugging tool, included with Safari on macOS. It is the incumbent solution Inspect most directly replaces for non-Mac teams, but is limited to macOS hosts.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/inspectdev
• GitHubgithub.com/inspectdev
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/inspectdev

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Inspect