Over the last seven months, I have been working on an idea that has been on my mind for a long time: a powerful desktop GUI for NATS. Today, I announce the official start of the closed beta phase!
I like the power of the official NATS CLI. It is a great tool for working with all the provided features of NATS. However, sometimes CLI applications are not ideal for visualizing data or dealing with complex configurations when mutating the cluster state. That is why I started working on Qaze.
A curated list of users now has access to the first version of Qaze. Their early interest in Qaze was a great motivation for me to finish my side project 😁. The feedback will have a significant impact on further development. Once everything is set up for selling the software, Qaze will be generally available on Mac, Windows, and Linux!
Features
Streams
With Jetstream-powered Streams, you get a clear picture of all your stream contents. You can see messages coming in real-time, even if there are thousands of messages per second. You can also open specific messages by providing the sequence number. The stream configuration is easily accessible, and all consumers are available as well.
There are also many options to manage a stream, which will be introduced in detail once Qaze is generally available.
Servers
See all running NATS servers in detail. It shows all the general information, Jetstream stats, Utilization stats, Gateways, Leaf Nodes, and many more. The Graph gives you a clear picture of your cluster topology.
Qaze supports clusters and even superclusters. To use the Servers feature, you need to have a system account.
Key Value Stores
Key Value Stores are built on top of Jetstream-powered streams. They can provide a globally distributed KV Store that is really powerful. With Qaze, you can explore the contents and the configuration of KV buckets.
Microservices
With NATS, you can develop Microservices that communicate via NATS messages (instead of traditional HTTP requests). Qaze helps to make all running microservices visible. See all instances of a microservice, their average response times, and all registered handlers.
If you haven’t heard of NATS-powered microservices yet, check out this awesome video from Jeremy, which is a great general introduction.
Dashboard
The Dashboard gives you a clear picture of the whole cluster state. The stats get refreshed automatically. See the details in the video below.
Wrap Up
I’m sure that Qaze will improve the way we interact with NATS clusters. I think it’s a valuable tool for developers and administrators. The shown features are just the beginning - there are many features planned for the near future that will make Qaze even more powerful.
To stay informed about the general availability of Qaze, visit the homepage and fill out the form.
If you want to chat about Qaze, join the community Discord server.
