docs: restructure README comparison table

[zach-snell]

Summary

Restructures the README comparison table into a compact "at a glance" section (5 differentiators) plus an expandable full matrix covering Deployment, Protocol support, Capabilities, Import/export, and Free tier.

Supersedes #17. Credits @ankitjaininfo's contribution; his feedback on row splits (per-protocol breakout, chaos split, stateful split, separate export row, self-hosted row) is incorporated directly.

Why restructure rather than row-add

The previous table bundled categories that were doing different work per tool:

• "HTTP + gRPC + GraphQL + WS" obscured WireMock's extension story and MockServer's gRPC gap.
• "Chaos engineering" conflated fault-injection primitives (delay, errors) with chaos-engineering features (named profiles, circuit breakers, bandwidth throttling).
• "Import OpenAPI/Postman/HAR" collapsed three separate formats into one, hiding per-tool differences.
• OSS vs Cloud tier gating (big deal for WireMock and Beeceptor) wasn't visible at all.

Breaking the rows up makes every tool score honestly on what it actually ships, and keeps the table durable as new tools and tiers get added.

Per-cell sources

Every non-mockd cell was verified against primary-source docs. Two Beeceptor cells originally marked ⚠️ unverified were resolved by @ankitjaininfo's confirmations on this PR; see commit history.

mockd

All nine ✅ marks verified against the current codebase at bfd88c1:

• Single binary: go.mod (Go 1.26.2, no runtime deps)
• Protocols: pkg/grpc/server.go, pkg/graphql/handler.go, pkg/websocket/handler.go, pkg/mqtt/broker.go, pkg/sse/sse.go, pkg/soap/handler.go, pkg/oauth/handler.go
• Stateful CRUD: pkg/stateful/bridge.go, pkg/store/file/stateful_resource_store.go
• Chaos profiles: pkg/chaos/profiles.go (10 named profiles)
• Circuit breakers: pkg/chaos/circuit_breaker.go
• MCP server: pkg/mcp/ (18 tools in tool_defs.go)
• Imports: pkg/portability/{openapi,postman,har,wsdl,wiremock,curl,mockoon}.go
• Tunnel: pkg/tunnel/manager.go
• Dashboard: pkg/admin/dashboard.go (build-tag gated, included in release binaries)

WireMock OSS

• Runtime: https://wiremock.org/docs/running-standalone/ (JVM required)
• gRPC / GraphQL / WS as extensions: https://wiremock.org/docs/grpc/, https://wiremock.org/docs/graphql/
• Scenarios (multi-step, no auto-CRUD): https://wiremock.org/docs/stateful-behaviour/
• Fault enum (EMPTY_RESPONSE, CONNECTION_RESET_BY_PEER, etc.): https://wiremock.org/docs/simulating-faults/
• Chaos modes / circuit breakers are WireMock Cloud features: https://docs.wiremock.io/chaos, https://www.wiremock.io/use-case/chaos-engineering
• OpenAPI / Postman import are Cloud features: https://docs.wiremock.io/openAPI/swagger
• MCP is Cloud-gated: https://www.wiremock.io/mcp-server
• Community converters for OpenAPI exist (e.g. OpenAPI Generator's WireMock target) but are not bundled in the OSS JAR.

Mockoon

• Desktop Electron app + CLI + Docker: https://mockoon.com/, https://mockoon.com/cli/
• Protocols (REST + WebSocket): https://mockoon.com/features/
• SOAP limited to application/soap+xml content type, no WSDL mocking
• mTLS client cert auth on roadmap (issue #1600, Nov 2024), not shipped
• Stateful CRUD via data buckets: https://mockoon.com/docs/latest/api-endpoints/crud-routes/
• Only OpenAPI v2/v3 imports (no Postman, HAR, WSDL): https://mockoon.com/docs/latest/openapi/import-export-openapi-format/
• Web app gated behind Mockoon Cloud paid plans: https://mockoon.com/cloud/
• Pricing: https://mockoon.com/pricing/

Prism

• Latest release v5.15.9 (2026-04-17) with standalone binaries: https://github.com/stoplightio/prism/releases/latest
  • Assets confirmed via GitHub API: prism-cli-linux (116 MB), prism-cli-macos (113 MB), prism-cli-win.exe (136 MB)
• Also available as Docker image and npm: https://hub.docker.com/r/stoplight/prism
• HTTP/OpenAPI only; no other protocol support: https://stoplight.io/open-source/prism
• Chaos feature request never implemented: Chaos Mode stoplightio/prism#471
• Post-SmartBear deprecation signals (Stoplight Platform → SwaggerHub): https://community.smartbear.com/discussions/stoplight/is-stoplight-dead-after-smartbears-acquisition/263623

MockServer

• JVM-based, Docker, Helm, Maven, npm wrapper: https://www.mock-server.com/mock_server/running_mock_server.html
• Homepage lists only HTTP, HTTPS/TLS, SOCKS as supported protocols: https://www.mock-server.com/
• No native gRPC, GraphQL, WebSocket endpoint mocking, MQTT, or SSE (verified absent from docs)
• Fault injection (delay, dropConnection, randomBytes): https://www.mock-server.com/mock_server/creating_expectations.html
• OpenAPI import: https://www.mock-server.com/mock_server/using_openapi.html
• Read-only dashboard: https://www.mock-server.com/mock_server/mockserver_ui.html
• Latest v5.15.0, low activity

Beeceptor

• Pricing and tier gating (on-prem is Enterprise-only per the pricing page): https://beeceptor.com/pricing/
• Protocols (REST, GraphQL via SDL, gRPC via proto, SOAP via WSDL, mTLS): https://beeceptor.com/docs/protocols-supported/
• Stateful (data-store + lists + step counters + CRUD routes capped at 10 on free tier): https://beeceptor.com/docs/tutorials/building-multi-step-user-journeys-using-api-mocking/
• OpenAPI import: https://beeceptor.com/openapi-mock-server/
• Fault injection (delay, status codes, malformed responses, weighted responses): https://beeceptor.com/docs/articles/api-virtualization-chaos-engineering/, https://beeceptor.com/docs/create-mocking-server/#weighted-response
• MCP endpoint gated behind Team plan: https://beeceptor.com/docs/mcp-agentic-mode/
• Own tunnel CLI (not ngrok): https://beeceptor.com/docs/local-tunneling-by-exposing-service-port/
• FAQ on on-prem: https://beeceptor.com/faq/ ("Contact support for details")
• No public Docker image on Docker Hub; GitHub org (https://github.com/beeceptor) has no installer or Helm chart

Beeceptor row resolution (per @ankitjaininfo confirmations):

• WebSocket: ❌ (mocking not supported, only HTTP proxy)
• Postman import: ❌ (not available)
• Bandwidth throttling: marked roadmap (2026 roadmap item)
• OAuth flows: stays ❌ (hosted oauth-mock is a template, not native OAuth flow infrastructure)
• Chaos profiles: stays ❌ (weighted responses are credited under Fault injection; this row is for named pre-built profiles like mobile-3g, dns-flaky)

json-server

• Latest v1.0.0-beta.15 (2026-03-23), still in beta, feature-frozen: https://github.com/typicode/json-server/releases/tag/v1.0.0-beta.15
• REST-only, Node-only (no Docker, no binary): https://github.com/typicode/json-server#install
• --delay flag removed in v1, no fault injection: https://github.com/typicode/json-server#migration-notes-v0--v1
• Auto-CRUD from db.json is the flagship feature: https://github.com/typicode/json-server#routes

Test plan

• Render README.md on GitHub and visually inspect at-a-glance table on desktop and mobile
• Expand <details> block and verify all four sub-tables render correctly
• Confirm emoji + unicode characters render consistently (no :white_check_mark: leftovers)
• Verify no links in the comparison section are broken
• @ankitjaininfo confirmations applied (WebSocket, Postman, Bandwidth throttling); editorial calls held on OAuth and Chaos profiles with rationale in commit history

[ankitjaininfo]

The new tables are very fair and detailed comparisions of available tooling stack. Great work @zach-snell in collecting all these.

w.r.t Beeceptor, here are the confirmations based on current capabilities.

• Websockets ❌ - mocking not supported
• Postman Import ❌ - not available.
• OAuth flows ✅ - Fully supported with customizations. There is a free community mock server without any restriction. (ref: https://app.beeceptor.com/mock-server/oauth-mock )
• Docker Image ✅ - available for Enterprise engagements only. (AWS, GCP, any cloud or local)
• gRPC ✅ - fully supported - (ref: https://beeceptor.com/grpc-mock-server/ )
• Chaos profiles ✅ - Available in Beeceptor. Users can define specific error rates (e.g., a 2% error rate, at API level) to test how cascading failures might impact system performance - (ref: https://beeceptor.com/docs/create-mocking-server/#weighted-response)
• Bandwidth throttling roadmap: Not available yet in Beeceptor, it's a 2026 roadmap item. (I see some columns has roadmap for other tools)

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