A new open-source project takes the Bus Pirate concept and serves it through a web browser.
ESP32-Bit-Pirate runs on an ESP32 microcontroller and hosts a command-line interface over WiFi, letting you probe hardware protocols from any browser on the same network. It supports the usual suspects: I2C, SPI, UART, and several others. The project follows a long tradition of Bus Pirate-inspired tools - the original has been a fixture on electronics benches since the late 2000s - but swaps the serial terminal for something reachable without installing a driver or opening a terminal emulator.
For hardware developers, the serial terminal setup tax is real: find the right port, set the baud rate, install a driver if you're unlucky, then start debugging. Moving the interface to a browser tab reduces that to typing an IP address. It also means you can probe a board sitting two desks away or buried in a test rig without physically sitting in front of it.
The Bus Pirate never went away - a version 5 with updated hardware arrived in recent years - so this is less a successor than a low-cost DIY alternative for anyone with an ESP32 in the parts bin and no appetite for off-the-shelf.