Fast tree browsing
Subscriptions, namespaces, queues, topics — indexed locally in SQLite. Navigation is instant, even on enterprise tenants with thousands of resources.
The fastest way to debug your Azure Service Bus
Search, inspect, edit, and resend messages in seconds — with custom dead-letter alerts and MCP-powered debugging built in.
Free · v0.8.5 · no account, no telemetry
Desktop app · Windows & macOS · free, v0.8.5
Built for the way developers actually use Service Bus.
Everything you'd want Service Bus Explorer to be, without the legacy baggage.
Browse and act on messages
Peek active and dead-letter messages without dequeuing. Filter by session, ID, subject, or DL reason. Edit a body before resending, or compose new messages from scratch.
New
Run queue operations in bulk
Purge, dead-letter, resend, or delete across a whole queue or DLQ from one place. Preview and filter the batch first, then watch each job run live — progress, an ETA, and a history of every operation that's run.
Set up automatic monitoring and alerting
Pick exactly which queues, topics, and subscriptions to watch, and which ones should alert. Runs in the background at a low cost to your machine.
Spotlight search
Ctrl+I opens a system-wide fuzzy search across every indexed resource. Stays active even with viewbus closed to the tray.
Built-in MCP server
Ships a Model Context Protocol server so Claude, ChatGPT, or any MCP-aware AI can list namespaces, search resources, peek queues, and fetch full messages.
viewbus-mcp
$ viewbus-mcp --list-tools
10 read-only tools · 1 opt-in write tool
get_status index state + last refresh
list_namespaces azure subscription namespaces
list_queues queues in a namespace
list_topics topics in a namespace
list_subscriptions subs under a topic
get_resource full detail for a resource
search_resources fuzzy across names + paths
count_messages active + dead-letter totals
peek_messages read without dequeuing
get_message_detail body + properties by seq no.
upsert_theme write · opt-in via settings
Built-in themes & VS Code import
Six built-in dark and light themes — including a warm Clave theme. One-click importer pulls your active VS Code theme into viewbus.
How it compares
The classic Service Bus Explorer is Windows-only; the Azure Portal can't search across resources or alert you. Here's where viewbus fits — and where the others still win.
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Native app for Mac & Windows
- viewbus
- Service Bus Explorer
- Windows only
- Azure Portal
- In-browser
-
Search message bodies across queues, topics & subscriptions
- viewbus
- Service Bus Explorer
- —
- Azure Portal
- —
-
Edit & resend, with a side-by-side diff
- viewbus
- Service Bus Explorer
- Limited
- Azure Portal
- —
-
Alerts when a queue or subscription crosses a threshold
- viewbus
- Service Bus Explorer
- —
- Azure Portal
- —
-
AI assistant access (MCP server)
- viewbus
- Service Bus Explorer
- —
- Azure Portal
- —
-
Relay, Event Hubs & Notification Hubs
- viewbus
- —
- Service Bus Explorer
- Azure Portal
- —
-
Price
- viewbus
- Free
- Service Bus Explorer
- Free
- Azure Portal
- Free
Why viewbus works this way → Coming from Service Bus Explorer? →
On the roadmap
Free, and shipping often. A few things already in the works:
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Dead-letter trends
History and sparklines per resource, so you can spot a backlog that started building two days ago — not just right now.
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More message formats
Syntax-highlighted XML, YAML, and protobuf bodies — not just JSON and plain text.
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Local emulator support
Point viewbus at the local Azure Service Bus emulator for development, right beside your real namespaces.
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Theme marketplace
Browse and one-click-install community-made viewbus themes, share your own, and export your full setup to move between machines.
Most requested
Request a feature →-
Flow Launcher plugin
▲ 0a plugin that extends flow launcher with the same functionality as the built in spotlight already does
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Open Source the App
▲ 0Open Source Viewbus It is difficult to trust an application that is being given trusted access to sensitive resources if…
Open any request to upvote it on GitHub — the most-wanted ship first.
Your data never leaves your machine.
No backend, no telemetry, no account. When you sign in, it's to your own Azure — not to viewbus. Tokens and connection strings stay in your OS keychain, never on disk in plain text.
We can't see your namespaces or your messages, and we're not training any AI on what you do. Don't take our word for it — open the network inspector and see exactly where traffic goes.
network · outbound
→login.microsoftonline.comsign-in
→management.azure.comyour subscriptions
→*.servicebus.windows.netyour messages
→viewbus.app/latest.jsonupdate check
→viewbus.app/announcements.jsonnotices
✓ no telemetry · no analytics · no account
✓ nothing about you is ever uploaded
Common questions
Is viewbus free?
Yes — viewbus is free for both Windows and macOS, with no account, no trial, and no paid tier. If it saves you time you can buy me a coffee, but nothing in the app is gated.
Does viewbus run on macOS?
Yes. There's a native build for Apple Silicon, installable with brew install --cask haakofli/viewbus/viewbus. The original Service Bus Explorer is Windows-only.
Can viewbus resend dead-lettered messages?
Yes. Peek a dead-lettered message, edit its body and properties in a side-by-side diff editor, then resend it to the original entity — one at a time, or in bulk across a filtered batch.
Does viewbus send my messages anywhere?
No. There is no backend, no telemetry, and no account. Your machine talks directly to Microsoft: login.microsoftonline.com, management.azure.com, and your own *.servicebus.windows.net endpoints. The only requests to viewbus.app are two static JSON files the app reads at startup, one for updates and one for notices.
Can I use viewbus with Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor?
Yes. viewbus ships a Model Context Protocol server over local stdio with ten read-only tools, so an AI assistant can list namespaces, search resources, count messages, and peek bodies without any cloud round-trip.
Do I need an Azure connection string?
No — signing in with your Azure account indexes every namespace you can see. Connection strings are still supported for namespaces outside your tenant, and they're stored in the OS keychain rather than on disk.
Something else? Get in touch →