head to head · open source
Bruno vs Scalar
Bruno has 47,992 GitHub stars, 3,068 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Scalar has 16,364 stars, 964 forks, 75 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Bruno leads on adoption by 193% (47,992 vs 16,364 stars). Bruno is written in JavaScript under MIT; Scalar is written in TypeScript under MIT. Bruno has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, Scalar 6%. Scalar was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 5 topic tags (api-client, http-client, openapi, openapi3), 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 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Bruno | Scalar | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 48K | ★ 16K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 964 |
| 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 Scalar if
- You want the Scalar feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Scalar 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 Scalar
Scalar Interactive API Reference from OpenAPI/Swagger └ Renders OpenAPI/Swagger documents └ Comes with an API testing tool └ Doesn't look like 2011 └ Generates code examples for many languages & frameworks └ Integrates with your favorite framework └ Try Demo An offline first API Client built for OpenAPI └ Free and open source └ First class OpenAPI/Swagger support └ Integrates with dozens of API Frameworks (Elysia, Hono, FastAPI, etc) └ Syncs with your favorite server framework (Watch Mode) └ Has environment variables, dynamic parameters and everything └ Try It in the Browser └ Download (Windows, MacOS, Linux)…
read the full Scalar 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 Scalar more popular?
Bruno has 47,992 GitHub stars and Scalar has 16,364. Bruno has the larger community by that measure.
Are Bruno and Scalar free?
Both are open source. Bruno is licensed under MIT and Scalar under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Bruno and Scalar?
Bruno is written in JavaScript and Scalar 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 Scalar?
Choose Bruno if you want the larger community (47,992 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Scalar if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.