head to head · open source
hurl vs swag
hurl has 19,203 GitHub stars, 745 forks, 200 open issues and last shipped yesterday. swag has 13,024 stars, 1,547 forks, 476 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. hurl leads on adoption by 47% (19,203 vs 13,024 stars). hurl is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; swag is written in Go under MIT. hurl has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, swag 12%. hurl 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
| hurl | swag | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 19K | ★ 13K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 745 | ⑂ 1.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick hurl if
- You weight community size — 19K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick swag if
- You want the swag feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and swag fits your workflow better
About hurl
Hurl is a command line tool that runs HTTP requests defined in a simple plain text format. It lives in the Rust ecosystem, is licensed under Apache 2.0, and is powered under the hood by libcurl, so it inherits curl's transfer behavior while adding a readable file format on top. A single Hurl file can chain multiple requests, capture values from one response, and reuse those values in later requests, which makes it possible to describe an entire HTTP session rather than a single call. The project has been on GitHub for six years and carries roughly 19,000 stars and 744 forks.
About swag
Swag is a command line tool that converts Go source annotations into Swagger 2.0 documentation. It lives in the Go ecosystem, is distributed under the MIT license, and is maintained by the swaggo organization. The project has been active for nine years, with the most recent push recorded in September 2026, and it carries roughly 13,000 stars and 1,545 forks on GitHub.
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Frequently asked questions
Is hurl or swag more popular?
hurl has 19,203 GitHub stars and swag has 13,024. hurl has the larger community by that measure.
Are hurl and swag free?
Both are open source. hurl is licensed under Apache-2.0 and swag under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between hurl and swag?
hurl is written in Rust and swag 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, hurl or swag?
Choose hurl if you want the larger community (19,203 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose swag if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.