head to head · open source
Bruno vs Insomnia
Bruno has 47,022 GitHub stars, 2,888 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Insomnia has 40,021 stars, 2,365 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Bruno leads on adoption by 17% (47,022 vs 40,021 stars). Bruno is written in JavaScript under MIT; Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. Bruno has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, Insomnia 6%. 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, http-client, rest-api), 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.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Bruno | Insomnia | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 40K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 2.4K |
| 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 Insomnia if
- You want the Insomnia 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 Insomnia 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 Insomnia
Insomnia is an open source, cross platform API client built with Electron and TypeScript for developing and testing APIs across multiple protocols including REST, GraphQL, WebSockets, SSE, and gRPC. It runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux and is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license. The project serves as a direct open source alternative to Postman, offering similar core functionality without vendor lock in or mandatory cloud usage.
read the full Insomnia overview →
More in Developer Tools
Related comparisons
More API Development & Testing projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the API Development & Testing field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Bruno or Insomnia more popular?
Bruno has 47,022 GitHub stars and Insomnia has 40,021. Bruno has the larger community by that measure.
Are Bruno and Insomnia free?
Both are open source. Bruno is licensed under MIT and Insomnia under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Bruno and Insomnia?
Bruno is written in JavaScript and Insomnia 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 Insomnia?
Choose Bruno if you want the larger community (47,022 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Insomnia if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.