Gretl is a port manager for developers. It sits in your menu bar, watches every port on your machine, and lets you name, group, start, stop, and share them — so "what's running on 3001?" is never a mystery. Works standalone or alongside your existing tools. Ships with a CLI (gr list, gr start), a Python/Ruby/Node SDK, and a gr.toml you can commit so teammates get the same setup automatically.
Hey PH! I built Gretl after losing too much time asking "what's on port 3000?" mid-sprint.
The core idea: every port on your machine gets a name, a group, and optionally a start command — so your whole stack is one gr start away. The menu bar app and CLI share the same config, so whatever you set up in the UI is immediately available in scripts and CI.
A few things I'm especially proud of:
Auto-detect scans your running ports and suggests names from the process + working directory
gr.toml lets you commit your port layout so new teammates get it automatically
SDKs for Node, Python, and Ruby so you can orchestrate services in tests
Would love to hear what groups/workflows you'd use this for — and happy to answer anything!
What's your biggest pain with managing local ports and dev services? Curious what problems you're solving day to day.
About Gretl on Product Hunt
“Visual control panel for localhosts”
Gretl launched on Product Hunt on May 13th, 2026 and earned 90 upvotes and 2 comments, placing #18 on the daily leaderboard. Gretl is a port manager for developers. It sits in your menu bar, watches every port on your machine, and lets you name, group, start, stop, and share them — so "what's running on 3001?" is never a mystery. Works standalone or alongside your existing tools. Ships with a CLI (gr list, gr start), a Python/Ruby/Node SDK, and a gr.toml you can commit so teammates get the same setup automatically.
Gretl was featured in Productivity (652.3k followers), Open Source (68.4k followers), Developer Tools (512.9k followers) and GitHub (41.2k followers) on Product Hunt. Together, these topics include over 237.7k products, making this a competitive space to launch in.
Who hunted Gretl?
Gretl was hunted by Gretl. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
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