head to head · open source
Insomnia vs CliRelay
Insomnia has 40,111 GitHub stars, 2,388 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. CliRelay has 1,049 stars, 133 forks, 13 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 3,724% (40,111 vs 1,049 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; CliRelay is written in Go under MIT. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, CliRelay 13%. 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 | CliRelay | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 1.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 133 |
| 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 CliRelay if
- You want the CliRelay feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and CliRelay 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 CliRelay
🔀 CliRelay A unified proxy server for AI CLI tools — use your existing subscriptions with any OpenAI / Gemini / Claude / Codex compatible client. Multi tenant web panel · request logs & quotas · routing groups & failover · self hosted English 中文 📖 Docs · 🖥️ Management Panel · 🐛 Report Bug · ✨ Request Feature ⚡ What is CliRelay? ✨ Heavily enhanced fork of the CLIProxyAPI project — rebuilt with a production grade management layer, web control panel hosting, and a terminal TUI for day 2 operations. CliRelay turns AI CLI subscriptions, OAuth credentials, API keys, and compatible upstream services into one…
read the full CliRelay overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or CliRelay more popular?
Insomnia has 40,111 GitHub stars and CliRelay has 1,049. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and CliRelay free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and CliRelay under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and CliRelay?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and CliRelay 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, Insomnia or CliRelay?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,111 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose CliRelay if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.