head to head · open source
Bruno vs dreamfactory
Bruno has 47,027 GitHub stars, 2,890 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. dreamfactory has 1,788 stars, 354 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. Bruno leads on adoption by 2,530% (47,027 vs 1,788 stars). Bruno is written in JavaScript under MIT; dreamfactory is written in Shell under Apache-2.0. Bruno has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, dreamfactory 20%. 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 | dreamfactory | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-08-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 354 |
| 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 dreamfactory if
- You want the dreamfactory feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and dreamfactory 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 dreamfactory
DreamFactory is a secure, self hosted enterprise data access platform that generates governed REST and MCP APIs for the databases and file storage an organization already runs, built for enterprise development teams that need role based API access without writing backend code.
read the full dreamfactory overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Bruno or dreamfactory more popular?
Bruno has 47,027 GitHub stars and dreamfactory has 1,788. Bruno has the larger community by that measure.
Are Bruno and dreamfactory free?
Both are open source. Bruno is licensed under MIT and dreamfactory under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Bruno and dreamfactory?
Bruno is written in JavaScript and dreamfactory in Shell. 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 dreamfactory?
Choose Bruno if you want the larger community (47,027 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose dreamfactory if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.