head to head · open source
Bruno vs Tyk
Bruno has 47,022 GitHub stars, 2,888 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Tyk has 10,822 stars, 1,166 forks, 509 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Bruno leads on adoption by 335% (47,022 vs 10,822 stars). Bruno is written in JavaScript under MIT; Tyk is written in Go under a custom or non-standard licence. Bruno has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, Tyk 11%. Tyk 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 | Tyk | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 11K |
| License | MIT | Custom / other |
| Written in | JavaScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| 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 Tyk if
- You want the Tyk feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Tyk 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 Tyk
Tyk is an open source API Gateway written in Go. The GitHub description names Tyk as an Open Source API Gateway written in Go, supporting REST, GraphQL, TCP and gRPC protocols. The tagline names it a Universal API management for REST, GraphQL, gRPC and async. It lives in the developer tools, API development and testing ecosystem. It acts as a reverse proxy for microservices and cloud native workloads.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Bruno or Tyk more popular?
Bruno has 47,022 GitHub stars and Tyk has 10,822. Bruno has the larger community by that measure.
Are Bruno and Tyk free?
Both are open source. Bruno is licensed under MIT, and Tyk has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Bruno and Tyk?
Bruno is written in JavaScript and Tyk 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 Tyk?
Choose Bruno if you want the larger community (47,022 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Tyk if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.