Buoy Desktop: a React Native devtools console you drive from your computer

A console on the desktop, not another phone overlay

Buoy Desktop shows the Buoy devtools running inside your React Native app as panels on your computer, and your Flutter app in beta. The framing the README uses is that it is the same live session as the floating menu on the phone, so the desktop is a different surface onto the same connection rather than a separate tool that has to attach again. What makes that more than a screen share is that you can act on the app from the desktop: edit storage, refetch queries, navigate, and switch between connected devices. So this is not a passive mirror. The Storage panel is a place you change state, the React Query and Redux panels are places you invalidate and refetch, and the device switcher is how you move between a simulator and a physical handset mid-session.

The panel list is the feature list

The inventory of what is inside is long and reads as a list of debugging questions answered. There are panels for Network, Storage, Events, Console, Images, Assets, Sentry, React Query, Redux, Zustand, Jotai, Time Machine, Routes, Env, Impersonate, Renders, Bench, JS Top, Ask Buoy, TV Remote and Focus Inspector. Alongside them sit a live performance HUD, a simulator screenshot tool, a Camera panel for the iOS Simulator, and a diagnostics console for connection problems. The state libraries are worth noticing as a group, because React Query, Redux, Zustand and Jotai each get their own panel, which tells you the tool reads your app's state through whatever mechanism the app already uses rather than expecting you to instrument it. Time Machine and Impersonate are the two that go beyond observation: one is about rewinding state and the other about seeing the app as a customer would see it.

Which panels appear is decided at runtime

The README is explicit that which panels you see depends on four things: the connected app, the tools it has installed, the platform and your plan. That is a meaningful design statement rather than a caveat about feature completeness. A panel for Zustand exists in the product but only appears for an app that actually uses Zustand, and a panel for the iOS Simulator only appears on macOS. The plan dimension is the commercial one, and the README points to the pricing page for what each plan includes. So when you compare this against the built-in React Native developer menu or a standalone desktop inspector, the honest comparison has to be per panel and per plan, not per product. The pricing link sits next to the download link at the top of the README, and the download itself is free to install with a Free or Pro account required to sign in.

Getting connected is the part that needs reading

The setup sequence is three steps and the third one is a test rather than a configuration. Download the latest release, open it and sign in to your Free or Pro Buoy account. Then add the @buoy-gg/external-sync package to your React Native app, with the Quick start documentation covering the rest, restart Metro and open the app. Finally pick the device in Desktop and trigger a request in your app to check that it shows up. The README then flags the part people get stuck on: Desktop sign-in and the device key are separate things, and physical devices, Android over USB, Expo tunnels and Flutter each need a little extra connection setup, covered individually in the Desktop guide along with troubleshooting. That last point is the practical risk in adopting it, since a React Native app on a physical handset is exactly the case where the connection is most likely to need attention.

Three.js support is a beta with a scene tree

The Three.js panel is announced as beta, and it works on the 3D scene rather than on the app's request layer. It shows the tree of your 3D app, and you pick a node to hide, move, turn or tint it. The setup path is the three.js guide, which covers both R3F and plain apps with mountBuoy, and the instructions are to add the Scene panel and the /web external-sync module. The README also states that a live Desktop check is still open for this beta, which is an unusual thing to see written down and tells you the feature is not finished. For a team building 3D interfaces in React Native this is the part of the tool with no equivalent elsewhere in the usual devtools, so the beta label is worth weighing against the alternative of building a scene inspector yourself.

Sims runs an AI agent where you can watch it

The Sims panel shows your AI agent at work on the Sim Farm, and the README describes what you see as each run, with a live picture of every sim. That is a different category of feature from everything else in the list, since the other panels observe and mutate your app while this one watches an agent operate. The environment framing fits the rest of the product too, whose banner line mentions switching environments, signing in as a customer, forcing an error or rewinding state, all inside the running app. The connection to the Impersonate panel is obvious: the Sims are the automated version of looking at the app from a different customer's point of view. Whether that is useful to you depends on whether you are already running agents against your application, and the panel is gated by the same plan rules as everything else.

What is actually in the repository

The repository listing is short: a .github directory, the README and an assets directory. There is no source tree, no build configuration and no licence file, and the licence section states plainly that this is proprietary software, copyright Buoy LLC, all rights reserved, with the Terms of Service linked. The primary language field is not even set, which matches the listing. So the repository is a landing page for the release artefacts rather than the project itself, and the actual client lives elsewhere. There is one piece of history in the repository worth noting, in a line at the bottom that says the old open-source React Query desktop tool used to live here, and that Buoy Desktop replaced it while supporting the full Buoy toolset. That tells you the naming in the wild is ambiguous: earlier references to an open-source React Query desktop tool point at code that is no longer here.

Where Buoy Desktop is the wrong choice

Four limits apply. It is proprietary and closed, so if your requirement is to read the tool's code, audit its handling of your data, or fork it, this is not an option, and the licensing terms are the ones linked from the site rather than an open licence you can evaluate at a glance. It is also commercial: the release is free to download but signing in requires a Free or Pro account, and the panel list varies by plan, so the total cost of the panels you actually want is a pricing question rather than a feature question. It is tied to the Buoy React Native toolset, so an app that does not have the Buoy devtools and the external-sync package installed will not produce panels. And it is a young product with beta areas: Flutter support is in beta, the Three.js scene panel is in beta, and a live Desktop check for it is still open.

Editorial conclusion

Use Buoy Desktop when you debug a React Native app and want the devtools panels on a large screen with the phone out of the way, since the same live session that the floating menu shows is what Desktop mirrors, and the panel list covers the common suspects such as network calls, storage and state stores. Do not treat this repository as source you can read or modify, because it contains only a README and assets while the licence is proprietary software with all rights reserved. Verify first which panels your plan actually includes, since the README says the visible set depends on the connected app, its installed tools, the platform and your plan, that the device connection path works for your setup, because physical devices, USB Android, Expo tunnels and Flutter each need separate setup, and that the Flutter support and the Three.js scene panel are still labelled beta.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. Buoy-gg/Buoy-Desktop on GitHub
2. Issues
3. Project website
4. README
5. Releases