Webhook Relay for Local Dev, Debugging, and Fan-Out

Overview

Webhook Relay is a cloud-based service designed to simplify the management and delivery of webhooks. It addresses several common challenges developers face when integrating with webhook-dependent APIs, particularly during development and in production environments where reliability is critical. The platform's core functionality revolves around receiving webhooks, providing tools for inspection and debugging, and ensuring their eventual delivery to intended destinations, even behind firewalls or in local development setups.

One of Webhook Relay's primary use cases is local development tunneling. This feature allows developers to expose a local server to the internet via a secure tunnel, enabling external services to send webhooks directly to a development machine. This eliminates the need for redeploying code to a public server for every webhook test, significantly accelerating development cycles. For instance, when integrating with a payment gateway like Stripe, Webhook Relay can receive Stripe webhook events and forward them to a local application, allowing for real-time testing of event handlers without exposing the local machine directly to the public internet or configuring complex network setups Stripe webhooks documentation.

Beyond local development, Webhook Relay provides robust capabilities for debugging and inspecting webhook traffic. Every incoming webhook is logged, allowing developers to view request headers, bodies, and delivery attempts. This granular visibility is crucial for diagnosing issues such as incorrect payloads, failed deliveries, or unexpected behavior from integrated services. The platform also supports retries and dead-letter queues, enhancing the resilience of webhook processing pipelines. This ensures that transient network issues or temporary downtime of a destination server do not result in lost events, a common concern for systems relying on asynchronous communication patterns.

For production environments, Webhook Relay offers webhook fan-out capabilities, allowing a single incoming webhook event to be distributed to multiple endpoints simultaneously. This is beneficial for architectural patterns where different internal services or microservices need to react to the same external event. For example, a single order fulfillment webhook from an e-commerce platform could be fanned out to an inventory management service, a shipping service, and a customer notification service. The service also supports various security features, including HMAC verification and basic authentication, to help secure webhook endpoints. Webhook Relay is suitable for developers and technical teams that require a reliable, observable, and flexible solution for managing webhook-driven integrations across their development and production lifecycles.

Key features

• Webhook forwarding and tunneling: Securely forward webhooks from public internet to local development environments or internal networks without exposing them directly Webhook Relay local tunneling.
• Webhook debugging and inspection: Log and inspect all incoming and outgoing webhook traffic, including headers, bodies, and delivery statuses, to simplify troubleshooting Webhook Relay debugging webhooks.
• Reliable delivery with retries: Automatically retry failed webhook deliveries with configurable policies to ensure events are not lost due to transient errors or destination downtime.
• Webhook fan-out: Distribute a single incoming webhook to multiple distinct destinations or services simultaneously Webhook Relay fan-out capabilities.
• Client SDKs and CLI: Provides official SDKs for popular languages (Go, Node.js, Python, Ruby) and a command-line interface for easy integration and management Webhook Relay documentation.
• Access control and team management: Manage team members, roles, and permissions to control access to webhook buckets and configurations.
• Custom rules and transformations: Apply rules to filter, modify, or transform webhook payloads before delivery.

Pricing

As of May 2026, Webhook Relay offers a free tier and several paid plans:

For detailed and up-to-date pricing information, refer to the Webhook Relay pricing page.

Common integrations

• Stripe: Tunnel Stripe webhook events to local development environments for testing payment processing and subscription updates Stripe webhooks documentation.
• Twilio: Receive Twilio SMS or voice webhooks, debug payloads, and forward them to various internal services Twilio webhooks guide.
• GitHub: Process GitHub webhook events for CI/CD pipelines, code analysis, or repository synchronization.
• Slack: Forward webhooks from various services to Slack channels for notifications and alerts.
• E-commerce platforms: Integrate with platforms like Shopify or WooCommerce to handle order updates, inventory changes, and customer events.

Alternatives

• ngrok: A widely used tunneling service primarily focused on exposing local servers to the internet, also offering inspection and replay features for HTTP traffic.
• Hookdeck: A platform specializing in reliable webhook ingestion, queuing, and delivery, with features for debugging, monitoring, and error handling.
• Svix: An enterprise-grade webhook platform providing features like security, reliability, message signing, and a developer portal for webhook consumers.

Getting started

To begin using Webhook Relay, you typically install the CLI client and set up a tunnel. The following example demonstrates creating a tunnel and forwarding requests to a local service using the Webhook Relay CLI:

# 1. Install the Webhook Relay CLI
sudo curl -s https://webhookrelay.com/assets/downloads/install-cli.sh | bash

# 2. Log in to your Webhook Relay account (you'll be prompted for a token)
relay login

# 3. Create a public input bucket (if you haven't already via the dashboard)
# This command is illustrative; typically, you create buckets via the Webhook Relay dashboard.
# relay bucket create my-public-bucket

# 4. Start a tunnel, forwarding requests from 'my-public-bucket' to your local HTTP server on port 8080
# Replace 'my-public-bucket' with the name of your actual bucket.
relay forward --bucket my-public-bucket --port 8080

# Now, any webhook sent to your Webhook Relay bucket endpoint
# (e.g., https://my-public-bucket.webhookrelay.com) will be forwarded to
# http://localhost:8080 on your machine.

# Example using cURL to send a test webhook to your Webhook Relay endpoint:
# (Replace 'YOUR_BUCKET_NAME' with your actual bucket name)
curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"message": "Hello from APIspine!"}' \
  https://YOUR_BUCKET_NAME.webhookrelay.com

# Your local application running on port 8080 will receive this request.

For more detailed instructions and alternative SDK examples, refer to the Webhook Relay getting started guide.