head to head · open source
Bruno vs connexion
Bruno has 47,027 GitHub stars, 2,890 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped yesterday. connexion has 4,612 stars, 784 forks, 186 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. Bruno leads on adoption by 920% (47,027 vs 4,612 stars). Bruno is written in JavaScript under MIT; connexion is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Bruno has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, connexion 17%. Bruno was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (openapi), 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 | connexion | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 4.6K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 784 |
| 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 connexion if
- You want the connexion feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and connexion 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 connexion
Connexion is an Apache 2.0 licensed Python web framework for spec first and API first development that connects an OpenAPI or Swagger specification to Python handler code, built for Python developers and platform teams who want the specification to drive the implementation instead of being generated from it.
read the full connexion overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Bruno or connexion more popular?
Bruno has 47,027 GitHub stars and connexion has 4,612. Bruno has the larger community by that measure.
Are Bruno and connexion free?
Both are open source. Bruno is licensed under MIT and connexion under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Bruno and connexion?
Bruno is written in JavaScript and connexion in Python. 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 connexion?
Choose Bruno if you want the larger community (47,027 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose connexion if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.