head to head · open source
Insomnia vs autorest
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars, 2,365 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. autorest has 4,798 stars, 736 forks, 25 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 734% (40,021 vs 4,798 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.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Insomnia | autorest | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 4.8K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeSpec |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 736 |
| 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 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 autorest
AutoRest is an MIT licensed, Node.js based code generator that reads an OpenAPI (formerly Swagger) specification and emits client libraries for C , PowerShell, Go, Java, Node.js, TypeScript, Python, and Swift, and it is built for API producers and platform teams that want generated, typed REST clients instead of hand written ones.
read the full autorest overview →
More in Developer Tools
Related comparisons
More API Development & Testing projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the API Development & Testing field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or autorest more popular?
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars and autorest has 4,798. 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 (40,021 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose autorest if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.