head to head · open source
Bruno vs Restfox
Bruno has 47,992 GitHub stars, 3,068 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Restfox has 2,775 stars, 146 forks, 49 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. Bruno leads on adoption by 1,629% (47,992 vs 2,775 stars). Bruno is written in JavaScript under MIT; Restfox is written in TypeScript under MIT. Bruno has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, Restfox 5%. Bruno was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 6 topic tags (api-client, api-testing, developer-tools, graphql-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 | Restfox | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 48K | ★ 2.8K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 146 |
| 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 Restfox if
- You want the Restfox feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Restfox 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 Restfox
Restfox Web App Install Releases/Downloads Screenshots Docs Compiling Compiling Web Standalone Offline First Minimalistic HTTP & Socket Testing Client for the Web & Desktop Watch video to see plugins in action: Installation macOS Package available in homebrew by using: Ubuntu and other distributions supporting snap Package available through snap can be installed using: RPM, DEB and NuPKG There are precompiled binaries in the releases page. Windows There are also precompiled binaries in the releases page. Docker Start webapp using docker compose Start webapp using docker compose with custom port Start webapp…
read the full Restfox overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Bruno or Restfox more popular?
Bruno has 47,992 GitHub stars and Restfox has 2,775. Bruno has the larger community by that measure.
Are Bruno and Restfox free?
Both are open source. Bruno is licensed under MIT and Restfox under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Bruno and Restfox?
Bruno is written in JavaScript and Restfox 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 Restfox?
Choose Bruno if you want the larger community (47,992 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Restfox if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.