head to head · open source
Bruno vs mcp-context-forge
Bruno has 47,992 GitHub stars, 3,068 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped yesterday. mcp-context-forge has 4,741 stars, 956 forks, 912 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Bruno leads on adoption by 912% (47,992 vs 4,741 stars). Bruno is written in JavaScript under MIT; mcp-context-forge is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Bruno has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, mcp-context-forge 20%. mcp-context-forge was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Bruno | mcp-context-forge | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 48K | ★ 4.7K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 956 |
| 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 mcp-context-forge if
- You want the mcp-context-forge feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and mcp-context-forge 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 mcp-context-forge
ContextForge An open source registry and proxy that federates MCP, A2A, and REST/gRPC APIs with centralized governance, discovery, and observability. Optimizes Agent & Tool calling, and supports plugins. ContextForge is an open source registry and proxy that federates tools, agents, and APIs into one clean endpoint for your AI clients. It provides centralized governance, discovery, and observability across your AI infrastructure: Tools Gateway — MCP, REST, gRPC to MCP translation, and TOON compression Agent Gateway — A2A protocol, OpenAI compatible and Anthropic agent routing API Gateway — Rate limiting, auth…
read the full mcp-context-forge 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 mcp-context-forge more popular?
Bruno has 47,992 GitHub stars and mcp-context-forge has 4,741. Bruno has the larger community by that measure.
Are Bruno and mcp-context-forge free?
Both are open source. Bruno is licensed under MIT and mcp-context-forge under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Bruno and mcp-context-forge?
Bruno is written in JavaScript and mcp-context-forge in Python. 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 mcp-context-forge?
Choose Bruno if you want the larger community (47,992 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose mcp-context-forge if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.