Getting started

Plonix captures the traffic between your browser and the application you are testing, maps the target as you browse, and helps you experiment and prove what you find. This page takes you from download to captured traffic in about a minute.

Install#

Mac. Download Plonix for Mac (Apple silicon and Intel, macOS 11 or later), open it and drag Plonix to Applications. Releases are not notarized by Apple yet, so macOS asks before opening Plonix the first time: open it, click Done, then go to System Settings › Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway next to Plonix. Or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Plonix.app once. Install and open Plonix shows each step with pictures.

Windows. Download Plonix for Windows (64-bit Windows 10 or 11) and run it. The installer is not code-signed yet, so SmartScreen may say it protected your PC: click More info, then Run anyway (with pictures). Plonix keeps its data in %USERPROFILE%\.plonix.

Every release is on the releases page, with what changed in CHANGELOG.md. To build Plonix yourself, see Build from source in the README.

Try the demo first#

The Start screen opens when you launch Plonix. Try the Demo opens a made-up shop's traffic with scope, findings and Bench experiments ready, and offers a short walkthrough. Test now! on a stop shows that part of Plonix working for real on the demo's data. Nothing in the demo reaches the internet. See The demo project.

Capture your first target#

1. On the Start screen, create a project. It is a folder (in ~/Plonix unless you pick another) that holds everything you capture.
2. Press Open target (⌘O, or the button at the top of the sidebar) and type the site you are testing. Plonix opens it in the capture browser, a separate browser with its own profile that routes through Plonix and trusts its certificate, so HTTPS works with nothing to install. The domain and its subdomains go into scope.
3. Browse the site. Requests appear in Traffic as they happen.

The capture browser is Chrome, Brave, Edge or Chromium. On a Mac with only Safari, Open target offers Get the Plonix browser, a one-time download. Firefox works too, after one click to trust the Plonix certificate. See Setting up capture on any Mac.

From a terminal#

The same in one command:

plonix open example.com

It creates the certificate authority (first run only), starts the engine, puts example.com and its subdomains in scope, opens a capture browser at the target and opens the Plonix window next to it. Plonix › Install Command Line Tool… in the app puts the plonix command on your PATH. Every command takes --json, and plonix --help lists them all.

plonix search host:example.com status:5xx   # newest first
plonix show 42                              # one request and its response
plonix watch scope:in                       # new traffic as it arrives

Where to go next#

• Traffic and the Lens: search, filter and read what you captured.
• Scope: let scope grow with the evidence, and decide what belongs.
• The Bench: edit a request, send it, branch and compare.
• Agents and MCP: connect Claude Code with plonix connect claude.
• The Plonix window: shortcuts, appearance and text size.