vLens

Native macOS vCenter/ESXi inventory — inspired by RVTools, with features RVTools doesn't have.

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vLens pulls vCenter/ESXi inventory into a fast, native SwiftUI window — every VM, host, datastore, network, and license, sortable and searchable, exportable to CSV or XLSX. If you've used RVTools on Windows, the data will look familiar; the app won't. No .NET, no VM/Wine, no Windows box just to run a reporting tool.

It covers essentially everything RVTools does (29 tabs total, 25 of RVTools' 26 documented tabs — only vFileInfo is missing) — but it isn't just a port. vLens adds several things RVTools doesn't have: historical performance data sampled over a time window you choose, point-in-time inventory snapshots you can compare, a one-page PDF management report, and quiet awareness of published VMware security advisories and ESXi/vCenter end-of-life dates.

Status: signed, notarized, and distributed — see Releases for a ready-to-run DMG, or Building from source below. Sparkle checks that feed automatically and offers in-app updates. Still in active development, and not yet validated against a real vCenter 7/8/9 environment (everything so far is verified against vcsim, govmomi's protocol-accurate simulator).

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Features

29 tabs	vInfo, vCPU, vMemory, vDisk, vSnapshot, vTools, vNetwork, vCD, vFloppy, vUSB, vPartition, vApp, vSource, vHost, vDatastore, vCluster, vRP, vSwitch, vPort, dvSwitch, dvPort, vNic, vSC+VMK, vHBA, vMultipath, vLicense, vHealth, plus vLens' own vPerformance and Snapshots
RVTools parity	Only vFileInfo (datastore file browser) is deliberately out of scope — RVTools' own docs flag it as slow and rarely used
vHealth	21 of RVTools' 24 documented health-check rules, thresholds adjustable in Preferences, re-evaluates instantly on change
Tags & Custom Attributes	vSphere Tags (CIS REST Tagging API) and Custom Attributes on VM/Host/Cluster/Datastore — shown on vCluster/vDatastore, exported for all four
vPerformance (not in RVTools)	Historical CPU/RAM/disk-IO usage over a time window you choose (1 hour–30 days), not just an instantaneous snapshot
Snapshots & Compare (not in RVTools)	Record a point-in-time set of inventory metrics, compare any two later with a color-coded delta
PDF report (not in RVTools)	One-page management summary — vCenter identity, counts, charts, vHealth status — generated on demand
Security advisories (not in RVTools)	Quiet toolbar badge when Broadcom publishes a CRITICAL/HIGH VMware security advisory
Export	CSV and XLSX, whatever the current tab shows, already filtered by search
Auto Refresh	Optionally re-collect inventory on a timer (1 minute–1 hour) while connected — off by default
Trust-on-first-use	Certificate fingerprint shown and pinned on first connect, like SSH host keys — a changed certificate later is a hard block, never silent
Demo mode	Every tab filled with realistic mock data — try the whole app without a vCenter
In-app Help & onboarding	Native Help panel (no external site), one-time welcome + per-feature tips
In-app feedback	Bug reports / feature requests, submitted directly as a GitHub issue — no telemetry, and you see exactly what diagnostic info would go along with it before you click Send

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Building from source

Prefer a ready-to-run build? See Releases. To build from source instead:

git clone https://github.com/canberkys/vlens.git
cd vlens

# Swift app
swift build
swift test

# Go helper (vCenter client — see Architecture below)
cd helper
go build -o vlens-helper .
cd ..

# Run
swift run vLens

Requirements: macOS 14 Sonoma or later, Swift 6.0+, Go 1.27+.

To produce a signed, packaged .app (requires your own Apple Developer ID — see scripts/release.sh for the one-time notarytool setup):

./scripts/release.sh

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Testing without a real vCenter

vLens ships with dev-only tooling built on vcsim — govmomi's own simulator, the same engine behind the upstream vcsim CLI. It's a real SOAP/PropertyCollector server, not a mock; vlens-helper talks to it exactly as it would talk to a real vCenter.

cd helper
go run ./vcsim              # small model, fast iteration
go run ./vcsim -bulk        # ~1,200 VMs / 34 hosts / 4 clusters / 12 datastores

Point vLens's Connect screen at the printed https://127.0.0.1:PORT/sdk URL with username user / password pass (vcsim accepts anything), approve the self-signed certificate, and every tab fills with real (simulated) data. collectAll finishes in well under a second even at the bulk scale.

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Architecture

Sources/vLens/       SwiftUI app — connect screen, tabs, Help, Preferences, Feedback
Sources/vLensCore/   Shared library — models, health checks, export, local stores
helper/              Go module (govmomi) — the actual vCenter client

vLens talks to vCenter through an embedded Go binary (vlens-helper), not a pure-Swift SOAP client — Swift has no maintained vSphere SDK, and govmomi (the same library behind Terraform's, Packer's, and Kubernetes' vSphere providers) already solves that problem well. The Swift app and helper speak a small JSON protocol over stdin/stdout — one process per collection, one login, one PropertyCollector pass per vim25 object type.

Full architecture rationale, every tab's exact data source, and the complete vHealth rule status live in docs/vLens-Reference.md.

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Data stored locally

~/Library/Application Support/vLens/
  connection-profiles.json    # saved host/username (never the password)
  inventory-snapshots.json    # Snapshots tab history
  certificate-trust.json      # pinned certificate fingerprints (trust-on-first-use)

Passwords, when you choose to save a connection, go to macOS Keychain — never to a file on disk. No analytics, no telemetry, no phone-home. The Feedback screen is the one thing that talks to the outside world, and only when you explicitly click Send — it shows you exactly what diagnostic info (app/macOS version, connected vCenter version — never your host, username, or password) would be attached before it goes anywhere.

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Roadmap

See CLAUDE.md (project context/status log) for the detailed, actively maintained roadmap. Near-term: real vCenter 7/8/9 validation once VPN access allows it.

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License

GPLv3 — see LICENSE. Copyleft: you're free to use, study, modify, and redistribute this code, including commercially, as long as your version stays open source under the same license. The LICENSE file includes a small set of additional permissions (allowed under GPLv3 §7) that specifically prohibit passing off a modified version as the official vLens project, or using the vLens name/icon for a derivative without saying it's derived.