head to head · open source
Bruno vs xh
Bruno has 47,022 GitHub stars, 2,888 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped yesterday. xh has 8,082 stars, 145 forks, 37 open issues and last shipped 13 days ago. Bruno leads on adoption by 482% (47,022 vs 8,082 stars). Bruno is written in JavaScript under MIT; xh is written in Rust under MIT. Bruno has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, xh 2%. Bruno 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, developer-tools, 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 | xh | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 8.1K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 145 |
| 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 xh if
- You want the xh feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and xh 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 xh
xh is a friendly and fast command line HTTP client written in Rust that reimplements as much of HTTPie's design as possible with a focus on improved performance, and it is built for developers and API testers who send HTTP requests from a terminal.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Bruno or xh more popular?
Bruno has 47,022 GitHub stars and xh has 8,082. Bruno has the larger community by that measure.
Are Bruno and xh free?
Both are open source. Bruno is licensed under MIT and xh under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Bruno and xh?
Bruno is written in JavaScript and xh in Rust. 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 xh?
Choose Bruno if you want the larger community (47,022 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose xh if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.