head to head · open source
Bruno vs just-api
Bruno has 47,022 GitHub stars, 2,888 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped yesterday. just-api has 814 stars, 36 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. Bruno leads on adoption by 5,677% (47,022 vs 814 stars). Bruno is written in JavaScript under MIT; just-api is written in JavaScript under MIT. Bruno has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, just-api 4%. 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-testing, automation, javascript), 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 | just-api | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 814 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-02-12 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 36 |
| 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 just-api if
- You want the just-api feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and just-api 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 just-api
Just API is a declarative, specification based test framework for REST and GraphQL APIs, written in JavaScript and distributed under the MIT license. It lives in the Node.js ecosystem and runs from the npm package just api . Instead of writing test code, a user describes a request and the response validation rules in a YAML file, and the framework builds the request, sends it to the server, and checks the response against that specification. Each suite can contain one or more specs, and suites run in serial or parallel mode.
read the full just-api overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Bruno or just-api more popular?
Bruno has 47,022 GitHub stars and just-api has 814. Bruno has the larger community by that measure.
Are Bruno and just-api free?
Both are open source. Bruno is licensed under MIT and just-api under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Bruno and just-api?
Bruno is written in JavaScript and just-api in JavaScript. 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 just-api?
Choose Bruno if you want the larger community (47,022 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose just-api if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.