What makes PortPilot different
Uniqueness is “what I still open when the other tools exist.”
Versus what you already have
Activity Monitor /lsof. They show a PID. They ask for the same three steps every day. They do not know the repo, the terminal tab, or how to restart Vite and the API as one batch.
A localhost page. Useful for one app you wrote. It cannot sit in the menu bar, catch Cmd + Option + P, or kill a process it did not spawn.
TablePlus + a JSON window + a clipboard manager. Each is good. Developers already use all of them in the same afternoon. PortPilot keeps that kit in one background app, one hotkey.
It will not replace a heavy database GUI or your editor.
Install
- Mac App Store: PortPilot Desktop — signed, Apple updates.
- GitHub: Shailesh200/PortPilot
- Releases: latest — Mac
PortPilot-x.x.x-arm64.dmg, WindowsPortPilot-Setup-x.x.x.exe
Store builds update through Apple. GitHub builds notify in-app. Every push to main (unless [skip ci]) bumps the patch, builds Mac and Windows, and publishes a Release.
Keyboard
Shortcuts live in Settings. The launcher is Cmd + Option + P so it does not steal VS Code’s palette.
| Shortcut | Action | |---|---| | Cmd + Option + P | Launch or focus | | Cmd + K | Palette | | Cmd + 1 / 2 / 3 | Three rooms | | / | Search ports | | K / R / O | Kill / restart / open | | T / V | Terminal / editor |
I built it because I was tired of guessing which process owned the port. If that is your afternoon too, that is the product.