head to head · open source
Bruno vs zato
Bruno has 47,027 GitHub stars, 2,890 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped yesterday. zato has 1,014 stars, 251 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Bruno leads on adoption by 4,538% (47,027 vs 1,014 stars). Bruno is written in JavaScript under MIT; zato is written in Python under AGPL-3.0. Bruno has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, zato 25%. zato 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 | zato | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 1.0K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 251 |
| 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 zato if
- You want the zato feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and zato 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 zato
Zato /zɑːtəʊ/ ESB, SOA, API and Cloud Integrations in Python. Zato is a Python based, open source platform that lets you automate, integrate and orchestrate business systems, APIs, workflows as well as hardware assets in industries such as airports, defense, health care, telecommunications, financial services, government and more. What does it look like in practice? Learn more Visit for the details, including: Downloads Screenshots Programming examples
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Frequently asked questions
Is Bruno or zato more popular?
Bruno has 47,027 GitHub stars and zato has 1,014. Bruno has the larger community by that measure.
Are Bruno and zato free?
Both are open source. Bruno is licensed under MIT and zato under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Bruno and zato?
Bruno is written in JavaScript and zato 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 zato?
Choose Bruno if you want the larger community (47,027 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose zato if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.