head to head · open source
Insomnia vs cc-gateway
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars, 2,365 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. cc-gateway has 3,044 stars, 503 forks, 21 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 1,215% (40,021 vs 3,044 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; cc-gateway is written in TypeScript under MIT. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, cc-gateway 17%. 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 | cc-gateway | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 3.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-04-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 503 |
| 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 cc-gateway if
- You want the cc-gateway feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and cc-gateway 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 cc-gateway
CC Gateway is a reverse proxy that sits between Claude Code and the Anthropic API and normalizes device identity, environment fingerprints and process metrics into a single canonical profile, so developers and teams can decide exactly what telemetry leaves their network.
read the full cc-gateway overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or cc-gateway more popular?
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars and cc-gateway has 3,044. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and cc-gateway free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and cc-gateway under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and cc-gateway?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and cc-gateway 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, Insomnia or cc-gateway?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,021 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose cc-gateway if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.