head to head · open source
Bruno vs apitest
Bruno has 47,022 GitHub stars, 2,888 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped yesterday. apitest has 846 stars, 58 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 15 days ago. Bruno leads on adoption by 5,458% (47,022 vs 846 stars). Bruno is written in JavaScript under MIT; apitest is written in Go under MIT. Bruno has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, apitest 7%. Bruno was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (api-testing), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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 | apitest | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 846 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 58 |
| 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 apitest if
- You want the apitest feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and apitest 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 apitest
apitest is a behavioural testing library for Go HTTP services, published under the MIT licence and maintained at github.com/steinfletcher/apitest. It lives in the Go ecosystem and has been in development for eight years, accumulating 846 stars and 58 forks, with an API the README describes as stable. Tests are written the way a client uses an API: a request is built, sent to a handler, and the response is asserted against expectations. The README states that in behavioural tests the internal structure of the application is not known by the tests; data is input to the system and the outputs must meet certain condi…
read the full apitest overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Bruno or apitest more popular?
Bruno has 47,022 GitHub stars and apitest has 846. Bruno has the larger community by that measure.
Are Bruno and apitest free?
Both are open source. Bruno is licensed under MIT and apitest under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Bruno and apitest?
Bruno is written in JavaScript and apitest in Go. 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 apitest?
Choose Bruno if you want the larger community (47,022 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose apitest if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.