// the find
thomasnordquist/MQTT-Explorer
An all-round MQTT client that provides a structured topic overview
MQTT Explorer is a desktop and browser-based MQTT client that arranges every topic on a broker into a navigable tree, so the structure of a smart home or IoT setup is visible at a glance instead of buried in a flat message stream. It is aimed at people who debug MQTT traffic in home automation or industrial setups and want to inspect, chart, and publish without writing a throwaway subscriber.
The topic tree is the core idea and it works: nested paths collapse into expandable nodes that show the latest value and a message history per topic, and the tree updates live as new topics appear. Numeric topics can be charted over time, the publish panel exposes QoS and retain flags, and decoders handle payloads beyond plain strings, including Sparkplug B and binary data. The same TypeScript codebase runs as an Electron app or as a Node server serving a browser UI, and the Docker image is built for amd64, arm64, and arm/v7, which covers Raspberry Pi installs.
The repo root is cluttered with status documents such as IMPLEMENTATION_SUMMARY.md, LLM_TESTS_DEBUG.md, and several mobile notes, which makes it hard to tell which docs are current. The desktop build is Electron, so a full Chromium runtime ships for what is essentially a tree viewer, and that footprint is noticeable on small machines. Docker browser mode can disable authentication entirely with MQTT_EXPLORER_SKIP_AUTH, which is fine behind a real SSO proxy and a bad default if someone sets it on an exposed port. The AI assistant needs an OpenAI or Gemini key, and any sample payloads it works from leave the machine, so check that before pointing it at a broker that carries sensitive telemetry.