head to head · open source
Bruno vs elements
Bruno has 47,027 GitHub stars, 2,890 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped yesterday. elements has 2,464 stars, 260 forks, 276 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Bruno leads on adoption by 1,809% (47,027 vs 2,464 stars). Bruno is written in JavaScript under MIT; elements is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. Bruno has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, elements 11%. Bruno was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (openapi, openapi3), 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 | elements | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 260 |
| 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 elements if
- You want the elements feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and elements 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 elements
[ ][elements landing page] [![CircleCI][circle ci image]][circle ci] [![NPM Downloads][circle ci image]][npm] [ ][stoplight forest] Beautiful API documentation powered by OpenAPI and Markdown. Use these UI components to create API reference documentation, or more complete documentation with Markdown articles covering tutorials, how to guides, etc. Available as React Components, or Web Components, you can use Elements all together to build beautiful three column "Stripe esque" documentation, or stacked documentation thats easier for integrating into existing Content Management Systems with their own navigation. Ov…
read the full elements overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Bruno or elements more popular?
Bruno has 47,027 GitHub stars and elements has 2,464. Bruno has the larger community by that measure.
Are Bruno and elements free?
Both are open source. Bruno is licensed under MIT and elements under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Bruno and elements?
Bruno is written in JavaScript and elements in TypeScript. 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 elements?
Choose Bruno if you want the larger community (47,027 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose elements if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.