head to head · open source
Insomnia vs gateway
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars, 2,365 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gateway has 3,036 stars, 867 forks, 761 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 1,218% (40,021 vs 3,036 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; gateway is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, gateway 29%. 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 | gateway | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 3.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 867 |
| 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 gateway if
- You want the gateway feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and 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 gateway
Envoy Gateway is an open source project that manages Envoy Proxy as a standalone or Kubernetes based application gateway. It lives in the Kubernetes and Envoy Proxy ecosystem, and it is associated with the CNCF, Gateway API, and go control plane topics. The project is written in Go and licensed under Apache 2.0.
read the full gateway 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 gateway more popular?
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars and gateway has 3,036. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and gateway free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and gateway under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and gateway?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and gateway 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 gateway?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,021 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose gateway if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.