head to head · open source
Bruno vs HTTPie
Bruno has 47,992 GitHub stars, 3,068 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped yesterday. HTTPie has 4,055 stars, 62 forks, 197 open issues and last shipped 1.6 years ago. Bruno leads on adoption by 1,084% (47,992 vs 4,055 stars). Bruno is written in JavaScript under MIT; HTTPie is written in various languages under a custom or non-standard licence. Bruno has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, HTTPie 2%. Bruno was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (api-client, api-testing, developer-tools), 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 | HTTPie | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 48K | ★ 4.1K |
| License | MIT | Custom / other |
| Written in | JavaScript | — |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2025-03-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 62 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Bruno if
- You weight community size — 48K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick HTTPie if
- You want the HTTPie feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- You evaluated both and HTTPie fits your workflow better
About Bruno
Bruno Opensource IDE for exploring and testing APIs. English Українська Русский Türkçe Deutsch Français Português (BR) 한국어 বাংলা Español Italiano Română Polski 简体中文 正體中文 العربية 日本語 ქართული Nederlands فارسی Bruno is a new and innovative API client, aimed at revolutionizing the status quo represented by Postman and similar tools out there. Bruno stores your collections directly in a folder on your filesystem. We use a plain text markup language, Bru, to save information about API requests. You can use Git or any version control of your choice to collaborate over your API collections. Bruno is offline only. There…
read the full Bruno overview →
About HTTPie
HTTPie Desktop In this repository, we publish releases of HTTPie Desktop for Mac, Windows, and Linux. The app continuously auto updates after the initial installation. Open HTTPie Desktop web app: httpie.io/app or req.new What’s new → Mac & Windows httpie.io/download → Linux Please follow the instructions below to install HTTPie for Desktop on Linux. ⚠️ The Linux package uses AppImage, and you need to install it using AppImageLauncher for the app to work: 1. Install AppImageLauncher (instructions) 2. Download HTTPie .AppImage (or HTTPie arm64.AppImage for ARM64 architecture) from the latest release page 3. Run $…
read the full HTTPie overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Bruno or HTTPie more popular?
Bruno has 47,992 GitHub stars and HTTPie has 4,055. Bruno has the larger community by that measure.
Are Bruno and HTTPie free?
Both are open source. Bruno is licensed under MIT, and HTTPie has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Bruno and HTTPie?
Bruno is written in JavaScript and HTTPie in various languages. 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 HTTPie?
Choose Bruno if you want the larger community (47,992 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose HTTPie if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.