head to head · open source
Bruno vs smocker
Bruno has 47,022 GitHub stars, 2,888 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped yesterday. smocker has 1,284 stars, 71 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Bruno leads on adoption by 3,562% (47,022 vs 1,284 stars). Bruno is written in JavaScript under MIT; smocker is written in TypeScript under MIT. Bruno has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, smocker 6%. Bruno 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.
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Side by side
| Bruno | smocker | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 1.3K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 71 |
| 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 smocker if
- You want the smocker feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and smocker 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 smocker
Smocker is an open source HTTP mock server and proxy for API development and testing. It lives in the developer tools ecosystem, where teams simulate third party services, stub routes, and inspect interactions without building a full backend. The project is MIT licensed, written in TypeScript, and distributed as a Docker image or manual deployment archive.
read the full smocker overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Bruno or smocker more popular?
Bruno has 47,022 GitHub stars and smocker has 1,284. Bruno has the larger community by that measure.
Are Bruno and smocker free?
Both are open source. Bruno is licensed under MIT and smocker under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Bruno and smocker?
Bruno is written in JavaScript and smocker 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 smocker?
Choose Bruno if you want the larger community (47,022 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose smocker if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.