---
title: "A smee.io Alternative for Reliable Webhook Forwarding | WebhookRelay"
meta:
  "og:description": "smee.io is great for quick GitHub webhook tests but is explicitly dev-only. Webhook Relay is a production-ready smee.io alternative: stable URLs, retries, and forwarding to localhost or private servers."
  "og:title": "A smee.io Alternative for Reliable Webhook Forwarding"
  description: "smee.io is great for quick GitHub webhook tests but is explicitly dev-only. Webhook Relay is a production-ready smee.io alternative: stable URLs, retries, and forwarding to localhost or private servers."
---

![Stripes](https://webhookrelay.com/blog/smee-io-alternative/images/stripes.svg)

# **A smee.io Alternative for Reliable Webhook Forwarding**

smee.io is great for quick GitHub webhook tests but is explicitly dev-only. Webhook Relay is a production-ready smee.io alternative: stable URLs, retries, and forwarding to localhost or private servers.

![A smee.io Alternative for Reliable Webhook Forwarding](https://webhookrelay.com/blog/smee-io-alternative/images/blog/heroes/alternative.jpg)

[smee.io](https://smee.io) is the webhook proxy from the GitHub/Probot ecosystem. It's a handy way to receive GitHub webhooks on your laptop while building a bot or an integration — paste the channel URL, run the client, done. But smee.io is **explicitly meant for development**, not production, and it offers no retries, persistence, stable guarantees or support.

Webhook Relay does the same localhost forwarding, but is built to be **relied on**.

## [TL;DR](#tldr)

- **Hacking on a Probot app or a quick GitHub integration?** smee.io is fine.
- **Need it to keep working** — with retries, a URL that won't disappear, and delivery to a private CI server? Use Webhook Relay.

## [smee.io vs Webhook Relay](#smeeio-vs-webhook-relay)

|  | smee.io | Webhook Relay |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Forward webhooks to localhost | Yes | Yes |
| Stable, persistent URL | Best-effort | Yes |
| Retries on failure | No | Yes |
| Request inspection UI | Basic | [Webhook Bin](https://webhookrelay.com/blog/smee-io-alternative/webhook-bin/) |
| Transform payloads | No | [Yes](https://webhookrelay.com/blog/smee-io-alternative/features/transform-webhooks/) |
| Deliver to private server / Kubernetes | No | Yes |
| Authentication on the endpoint | No | Yes |
| Intended for production | No (dev only) | Yes |
| Support / SLA | Community | Paid plans |

## [The same five-minute setup, but production-grade](#the-same-five-minute-setup-but-production-grade)

GitHub → Webhook Relay → your machine:

1. [Create a free account](https://my.webhookrelay.com/register) and note your endpoint URL.
2. Add it as a webhook in your GitHub repo (Settings → Webhooks).
3. Run the agent to deliver events to your local server or CI:

```
relay forward --bucket github http://localhost:3000/github/webhook
```

Because the URL is stable and deliveries retry, you can leave it running — for a dev box _or_ a real internal CI server behind a firewall. See the [GitHub + Jenkins guide](https://webhookrelay.com/blog/smee-io-alternative/blog/github-jenkins-guide/) for a CI example.

## [Why move off smee.io for anything real](#why-move-off-smeeio-for-anything-real)

smee.io is a great convenience for the Probot tutorial. The moment a missed delivery matters — a CI build that didn't trigger, a bot that went quiet — you want **retries, persistence and visibility**. That's the line between a dev helper and infrastructure.

[Start free](https://my.webhookrelay.com/register), or [inspect a GitHub webhook](https://webhookrelay.com/blog/smee-io-alternative/webhook-bin/) in your browser first.

![Stripes](https://webhookrelay.com/blog/smee-io-alternative/images/stripes-dark.svg)

## **Start forwarding webhooks in minutes **

Connect a source, pick a destination, and Webhook Relay handles delivery, retries and transforms. Set up your first webhook in under five minutes.

[Start for free ->](https://my.webhookrelay.com/register)

Free plan · No credit card required · 7-day money-back guarantee on paid plans