head to head · open source
Bruno vs hurl
Bruno has 47,022 GitHub stars, 2,888 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hurl has 19,203 stars, 745 forks, 200 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Bruno leads on adoption by 145% (47,022 vs 19,203 stars). Bruno is written in JavaScript under MIT; hurl is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. Bruno has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, hurl 4%. Bruno was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (api-testing, http-client), 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 | hurl | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 19K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 745 |
| 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 hurl if
- You want the hurl feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and hurl 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 hurl
Hurl is a command line tool that runs HTTP requests defined in a simple plain text format. It lives in the Rust ecosystem, is licensed under Apache 2.0, and is powered under the hood by libcurl, so it inherits curl's transfer behavior while adding a readable file format on top. A single Hurl file can chain multiple requests, capture values from one response, and reuse those values in later requests, which makes it possible to describe an entire HTTP session rather than a single call. The project has been on GitHub for six years and carries roughly 19,000 stars and 744 forks.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Bruno or hurl more popular?
Bruno has 47,022 GitHub stars and hurl has 19,203. Bruno has the larger community by that measure.
Are Bruno and hurl free?
Both are open source. Bruno is licensed under MIT and hurl under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Bruno and hurl?
Bruno is written in JavaScript and hurl in Rust. 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 hurl?
Choose Bruno if you want the larger community (47,022 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose hurl if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.