head to head · open source
Insomnia vs cli-printing-press
Insomnia has 40,023 GitHub stars, 2,367 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped today. cli-printing-press has 4,724 stars, 515 forks, 65 open issues and last shipped today. Insomnia leads on adoption by 747% (40,023 vs 4,724 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; cli-printing-press is written in Go under MIT. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, cli-printing-press 11%. Insomnia 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
| Insomnia | cli-printing-press | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 4.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 515 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Insomnia if
- You weight community size — 40K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick cli-printing-press if
- You want the cli-printing-press feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and cli-printing-press fits your workflow better
About Insomnia
Insomnia is an open source, cross platform API client built with Electron and TypeScript for developing and testing APIs across multiple protocols including REST, GraphQL, WebSockets, SSE, and gRPC. It runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux and is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license. The project serves as a direct open source alternative to Postman, offering similar core functionality without vendor lock in or mandatory cloud usage.
read the full Insomnia overview →
About cli-printing-press
CLI Printing Press is a Go tool that reads an API's official documentation, studies competing community CLIs and MCP servers, sniffs out undocumented endpoints, and prints a token efficient Go CLI alongside a Claude Code skill and an MCP server — built for AI agents first, and for the developers who wire those agents up.
read the full cli-printing-press overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or cli-printing-press more popular?
Insomnia has 40,023 GitHub stars and cli-printing-press has 4,724. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and cli-printing-press free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and cli-printing-press under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and cli-printing-press?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and cli-printing-press 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, Insomnia or cli-printing-press?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,023 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose cli-printing-press if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.