head to head · open source
Insomnia vs emissary
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars, 2,365 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. emissary has 4,523 stars, 708 forks, 442 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Insomnia leads on adoption by 785% (40,021 vs 4,523 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; emissary is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, emissary 16%. emissary 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 | emissary | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 4.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 708 |
| 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 emissary if
- You want the emissary feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and emissary 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 emissary
Emissary ingress is an open source Kubernetes native API gateway, Layer 7 load balancer, and Kubernetes Ingress built on the Envoy Proxy. The project is written in Python, distributed under the Apache 2.0 license, and is a CNCF incubation project formerly known as Ambassador API Gateway. It lives in the cloud native ecosystem and targets microservice platforms that already use Kubernetes for scaling and resiliency.
read the full emissary overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or emissary more popular?
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars and emissary has 4,523. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and emissary free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and emissary under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and emissary?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and emissary in Python. 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 emissary?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,021 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose emissary if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.