head to head · open source
Hoppscotch vs hey-api
Hoppscotch has 80,331 GitHub stars, 6,110 forks, 820 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. hey-api has 5,416 stars, 434 forks, 630 open issues and last shipped 25 days ago. Hoppscotch leads on adoption by 1,383% (80,331 vs 5,416 stars). Hoppscotch is written in TypeScript under MIT; hey-api is written in TypeScript under MIT. Hoppscotch has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, hey-api 8%. Hoppscotch was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (api-client, developer-tools), 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
| Hoppscotch | hey-api | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 80K | ★ 5.4K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-08-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.1K | ⑂ 434 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Hoppscotch if
- You weight community size — 80K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick hey-api if
- You want the hey-api feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and hey-api fits your workflow better
About Hoppscotch
Hoppscotch is an open source API development ecosystem that provides a full featured client for designing, testing, and documenting APIs. It operates as a web based application, desktop app, and CLI tool, supporting offline, on premises, and cloud deployments. Built with TypeScript and licensed under MIT, it serves as a direct open source alternative to proprietary tools like Postman and Insomnia.
read the full Hoppscotch overview →
About hey-api
Hey API is an open source ecosystem for turning API specifications into production ready code. It is distributed as a monorepo containing all of the project's open source packages, with the two primary generators being openapi ts for TypeScript and openapi python for Python. The TypeScript generator ships with more than twenty plugins covering SDKs, Zod schemas, and TanStack Query hooks, while the Python generator produces SDKs and Pydantic models. A supporting library, spec types , provides TypeScript definitions for OpenAPI and JSON Schema specifications with complete inline documentation. The project lives in …
read the full hey-api overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Hoppscotch or hey-api more popular?
Hoppscotch has 80,331 GitHub stars and hey-api has 5,416. Hoppscotch has the larger community by that measure.
Are Hoppscotch and hey-api free?
Both are open source. Hoppscotch is licensed under MIT and hey-api under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Hoppscotch and hey-api?
Hoppscotch is written in TypeScript and hey-api in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Hoppscotch or hey-api?
Choose Hoppscotch if you want the larger community (80,331 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose hey-api if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.