head to head · open source
Insomnia vs autorest
Insomnia has 40,111 GitHub stars, 2,388 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. autorest has 4,790 stars, 735 forks, 25 open issues and last shipped 29 days ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 737% (40,111 vs 4,790 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; autorest is written in TypeSpec under MIT. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, autorest 15%. 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 | autorest | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 4.8K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeSpec |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 735 |
| 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 autorest if
- You want the autorest feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeSpec
- You evaluated both and autorest fits your workflow better
About Insomnia
Insomnia API Client Insomnia is an open source, cross platform API client for GraphQL, REST, WebSockets, Server Sent Events (SSE), gRPC and any other HTTP compatible protocol. With Insomnia you can: Debug APIs using the most popular protocols and formats. Design APIs using the native OpenAPI editor and visual preview. Test APIs using native test suites and collection runner. Mock APIs using a cloud or self hosted mocking server. Build CI/CD pipelines using the native Insomnia CLI for linting and testing. Collaborate with others using the many collaboration features. And more including the ability to use 3rd…
read the full Insomnia overview →
About autorest
⚠️ Deprecation Notice AutoRest is deprecated and will be retired on July 1, 2026. AutoRest is no longer under active development. No new features, language generators, or plugins will be added. ✅ Recommended replacement: TypeSpec The recommended successor to AutoRest is TypeSpec — a modern, actively developed API description language and code generation platform. 📌 Deprecation tracking issue for more details: AutoRest The AutoRest tool generates client libraries for accessing RESTful web services. Input to AutoRest is a spec that describes the REST API using the OpenAPI Specification format. Release notes…
read the full autorest overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or autorest more popular?
Insomnia has 40,111 GitHub stars and autorest has 4,790. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and autorest free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and autorest under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and autorest?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and autorest in TypeSpec. 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 autorest?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,111 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose autorest if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.