Charlotte vs Charles Proxy
Charles is the tool a lot of mobile developers and QA engineers reach for by habit, and it has earned that. It is also a Java application that has looked and felt the same for a long time, and it costs $50 per user. Charlotte is a native app on both platforms it supports, costs $29.99, and exposes captured traffic to AI agents over MCP.
The short version
Both are one-time purchases, so this is not a subscription argument. It comes down to three things: whether you need Linux (Charles only), whether you want a native UI (Charlotte), and whether your coding agent should be able to read the capture (Charlotte only).
Side by side
| Charlotte.Pro | Charles | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $29.99 once | $50 once, single user |
| Licence model | One-time, never expires | One-time; free upgrade to the next major version only if it ships within 3 months of purchase |
| Trial terms | 14 days, everything unlocked, then it locks the Pro features | 30 days, then sessions are capped at 30 minutes with a startup delay |
| MCP server for AI agents | Built in — 9 tools, read and write | Not offered |
| UI | Native — WinUI 3 on Windows and SwiftUI on macOS | Java / Swing, consistent across platforms |
| Platforms | Windows and macOS | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| Native ARM64 on Windows | Yes | Runs via the Java runtime |
| Account required | No | No |
| Telemetry | None — there is no backend | No cloud account required |
| Breakpoints, map & rewrite rules | Yes | Yes |
| Throttling / network simulation | Yes | Yes — long-standing strength |
| Protobuf body viewer | Built in | Via configuration |
| On-device AI traffic analysis | Yes, local models only | No |
| Session security audit | Yes | No |
| HAR import / export | Yes | Yes |
Charles pricing and licence terms from charlesproxy.com, read 4 August 2026. Multi-seat pricing is available. Verify before you buy.
When Charles is the better choice
- You work on Linux. Charlotte supports Windows and macOS; Charles also runs on Linux.
- You already know it. A decade of muscle memory and a mountain of Stack Overflow answers are real value. Switching costs are not zero.
- You need one identical tool across three operating systems. The Java UI is the trade-off that buys this.
- Your workflow leans on a Charles-specific feature — the ecosystem of blog posts, recipes and integrations built up around it over the years.
When Charlotte is the better choice
- You use a coding agent. Charlotte's MCP server lets Claude, OpenAI Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor and other MCP clients search the session, open any request and replay or rewrite it. Nothing in Charles does this.
- You want the app to feel like the OS. Native WinUI 3 and SwiftUI rather than Swing — including proper dark mode, ARM64 and DPI behaviour.
- You want the audit. Charlotte can analyse a whole session and report cleartext HTTP, weak transport and exposed credentials, on device.
- You would rather pay $29.99 than $50. Same shape of deal, lower number.
Things Charlotte does not do
- HTTP/3 (QUIC) is not decrypted. It runs over UDP and cannot be intercepted by a TCP proxy. Charlotte can strip
Alt-Svcto force an HTTP/2 fallback so those hosts stay inspectable. - No Linux build. Charlotte supports Windows and macOS, but not Linux.
- Much less history. Charles has years of accumulated edge-case handling; Charlotte's Windows app shipped in 2026.
- Certificate-pinned apps will still reject the intercepted certificate unless you exclude them — true of Charles too.
Charles is a trademark of XK72 Ltd. Charlotte is not affiliated with or endorsed by XK72. This page is a good-faith comparison written by Charlotte's developer; every claim about Charles comes from its own published documentation and pricing pages on the date shown above.