head to head · open source
Bruno vs api-umbrella
Bruno has 47,022 GitHub stars, 2,888 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped yesterday. api-umbrella has 2,198 stars, 374 forks, 256 open issues and last shipped 20 days ago. Bruno leads on adoption by 2,039% (47,022 vs 2,198 stars). Bruno is written in JavaScript under MIT; api-umbrella is written in Ruby under MIT. Bruno has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, api-umbrella 17%. Bruno was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Bruno | api-umbrella | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-08-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 374 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Bruno if
- You weight community size — 47K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick api-umbrella if
- You want the api-umbrella feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and api-umbrella fits your workflow better
About Bruno
Bruno is a lightweight, open source API client and IDE for exploring and testing APIs, built for developers and teams who want their request collections stored as plain text in a folder on their own filesystem rather than in a vendor's cloud.
read the full Bruno overview →
About api-umbrella
API Umbrella is an MIT licensed, Ruby based open source API management platform that runs as a layer above existing web service APIs so that access control, rate limiting, analytics, and unified documentation are handled by the platform instead of by each individual API's code.
read the full api-umbrella overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Bruno or api-umbrella more popular?
Bruno has 47,022 GitHub stars and api-umbrella has 2,198. Bruno has the larger community by that measure.
Are Bruno and api-umbrella free?
Both are open source. Bruno is licensed under MIT and api-umbrella under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Bruno and api-umbrella?
Bruno is written in JavaScript and api-umbrella in Ruby. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Bruno or api-umbrella?
Choose Bruno if you want the larger community (47,022 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose api-umbrella if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.