BracketView 0.1.4 for Windows and Linux — local viewer, jq, diff, and schema, with no account and no cloud.
I built BracketView because I was tired of pasting production JSON into whoever’s “free formatter” ranked that week.
The web app already does the useful part in the browser: view, format, validate, JSONPath, jq, diff, schema, types. Core tools run locally in the page. Optional extras — AI assist, encrypted snapshots, webhooks, signed-in history — only hit a server when you choose them.
That model is honest. It is still a website. “Open this file on my machine and never upload it” is a different product.
So 0.1.4 is a desktop app. Windows and Linux. Same workspace, as a local window, with a file menu.
What it is (and isn’t)
BracketView is a JSON workspace, not an API client and not a tournament bracket tool.
Desktop (0.1.4) is offline on purpose:
- Text editor, tree, graph, node, and table views
- Stats, jq, and JSONPath
- Diff, schema, types
- Encoder/decoder and text compare
- Open / Save / Save As, including
.jsonfrom the OS
No sign-in. No AI. No snapshots. No webhooks. JSON stays on that computer.
The web app is still there when you want the optional server features or you just don’t want to install anything: https://app.bracketview.in
I am not shipping macOS yet. I am not on Flathub or the Microsoft Store. Windows builds are unsigned, so SmartScreen may show More info → Run anyway. Say that up front or people think the file is malware.
Why Tauri, not Electron, not a GTK rewrite
The Windows app was already Tauri 2 around a static export of the Next.js UI (WebView2). Linux is the same shell with WebKitGTK: AppImage and .deb.
I looked at rewriting the UI in native GNOME widgets. BracketView is Monaco, graphs, tables, Tailwind — that would have been a new app, not a port. Reusing the existing desktop UI was the point.
🐧 Linux packages:
🪟 Windows:
All of them from the downloads page: https://bracketview.in/downloads
Linux is x86_64. You want WebKitGTK 4.1 (Ubuntu 22.04 / Debian 12 is the floor I am targeting). If you install the .deb inside WSL, Mesa/EGL will complain; the window can still come up. On a real Linux desktop those warnings usually go away.
Privacy, without the slogan
Default path: the document never goes to my servers.
That is the whole pitch. If you need AI cleanup, a share link, or a webhook inbox, use the web app and opt in. Don’t pretend the desktop binary is a SaaS client with the cloud stripped out of the marketing copy only.
What I want back
If you live in JSON all day — APIs, logs, Terraform-ish blobs, “why is this 40MB response 90% nested nulls” — install it, open a real file, and tell me what is still painful.
Downloads: https://bracketview.in/downloads
I’m the founder. I’ll read the issues.
If this was useful, follow for the next platform when it actually exists — not before.
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