head to head · open source
Bruno vs runn
Bruno has 47,022 GitHub stars, 2,888 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped yesterday. runn has 649 stars, 58 forks, 27 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Bruno leads on adoption by 7,145% (47,022 vs 649 stars). Bruno is written in JavaScript under MIT; runn is written in Go under MIT. Bruno has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, runn 9%. runn 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, 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 | runn | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 649 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 58 |
| 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 runn if
- You want the runn feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and runn 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 runn
runn is a Go package and command line tool that runs operations following a scenario, built for developers, testers, and automation engineers who need scenario based testing, workflow automation, or a test helper inside Go test suites.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Bruno or runn more popular?
Bruno has 47,022 GitHub stars and runn has 649. Bruno has the larger community by that measure.
Are Bruno and runn free?
Both are open source. Bruno is licensed under MIT and runn under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Bruno and runn?
Bruno is written in JavaScript and runn in Go. 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 runn?
Choose Bruno if you want the larger community (47,022 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose runn if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.