head to head · open source
Bruno vs swagger-core
Bruno has 47,022 GitHub stars, 2,888 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped yesterday. swagger-core has 7,530 stars, 2,259 forks, 197 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Bruno leads on adoption by 524% (47,022 vs 7,530 stars). Bruno is written in JavaScript under MIT; swagger-core is written in Java under Apache-2.0. Bruno has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, swagger-core 30%. Bruno was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (openapi, openapi3, rest-api), 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 | swagger-core | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 7.5K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 2.3K |
| 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 swagger-core if
- You want the swagger-core feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and swagger-core 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 swagger-core
Swagger Core is the Java implementation of the OpenAPI Specification that generates a machine readable REST API description from JAX RS2 annotations and Java classes, intended for Java server developers and API platform teams that publish and maintain OpenAPI documents alongside their services.
read the full swagger-core overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Bruno or swagger-core more popular?
Bruno has 47,022 GitHub stars and swagger-core has 7,530. Bruno has the larger community by that measure.
Are Bruno and swagger-core free?
Both are open source. Bruno is licensed under MIT and swagger-core under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Bruno and swagger-core?
Bruno is written in JavaScript and swagger-core in Java. 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 swagger-core?
Choose Bruno if you want the larger community (47,022 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose swagger-core if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.