head to head · open source
Insomnia vs agentgateway
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars, 2,365 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. agentgateway has 4,895 stars, 853 forks, 258 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Insomnia leads on adoption by 718% (40,021 vs 4,895 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; agentgateway is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, agentgateway 17%. agentgateway 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 | agentgateway | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 4.9K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 853 |
| 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 agentgateway if
- You want the agentgateway feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and agentgateway 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 agentgateway
Agentgateway is an open source proxy written in Rust and licensed under Apache 2.0. It is a next generation agentic proxy for AI agents and MCP servers, and it operates inside the Developer Tools, API gateway, Kubernetes, service mesh, and AI gateway ecosystem. The project is built on the MCP and A2A protocols.
read the full agentgateway overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or agentgateway more popular?
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars and agentgateway has 4,895. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and agentgateway free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and agentgateway under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and agentgateway?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and agentgateway in Rust. 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 agentgateway?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,021 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose agentgateway if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.