head to head · open source
Bruno vs Zappa
Bruno has 47,022 GitHub stars, 2,888 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Zappa has 3,695 stars, 392 forks, 23 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Bruno leads on adoption by 1,173% (47,022 vs 3,695 stars). Bruno is written in JavaScript under MIT; Zappa is written in Python under MIT. Bruno has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, Zappa 11%. 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 | Zappa | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 3.7K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 392 |
| 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 Zappa if
- You want the Zappa feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Zappa 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 Zappa
Zappa is an open source Python project for deploying serverless web applications and APIs on AWS. It lives in the Python web framework ecosystem and the AWS serverless ecosystem, with topic tags for Flask, Django, Pyramid, Bottle, AWS Lambda, API Gateway, and ALB. The project is distributed under the MIT license and is categorized as a developer tool for API development and testing.
read the full Zappa overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Bruno or Zappa more popular?
Bruno has 47,022 GitHub stars and Zappa has 3,695. Bruno has the larger community by that measure.
Are Bruno and Zappa free?
Both are open source. Bruno is licensed under MIT and Zappa under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Bruno and Zappa?
Bruno is written in JavaScript and Zappa in Python. 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 Zappa?
Choose Bruno if you want the larger community (47,022 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Zappa if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.