Show HN: Free browser-based vector tile inspector – paste any MVT/PBF URL

  • Posted 5 hours ago by jarl-ragnar
  • 2 points
https://marinecharts.io/tools/vector-tile-inspector
I built this while debugging our own tile pipelines for MarineCharts (a nautical chart API). I wanted something you could just paste a URL into.

It runs entirely in the browser – no install, no signup. You paste a tile URL template ({z}/{x}/{y}.pbf), click Load, and it renders the tiles on a map. As you hover over features, you get a live property inspector showing all attributes on that feature. The left panel lists all detected layers; clicking one filters the inspection to just that layer.

Supports: MVT/PBF endpoints and any standard vector tile format. Works with Mapbox GL JS and MapLibre GL backends.

I use it constantly when checking that my tile generation pipeline is emitting the right feature attributes, or when exploring a third-party tile source before integrating it.

Would be curious if this is useful to others working with vector tile data, and what features would make it more useful (attribute filtering? tile boundary/coordinates overlay? hex/decoded view of the raw PBF?).

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