head to head · open source
Insomnia vs ghapi
Insomnia has 40,111 GitHub stars, 2,388 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ghapi has 687 stars, 69 forks, 49 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 5,739% (40,111 vs 687 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; ghapi is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, ghapi 10%. Insomnia was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (api-client), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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 | ghapi | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 687 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 69 |
| 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 ghapi if
- You want the ghapi 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 ghapi 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 ghapi
ghapi ghapi v2 (July 2026) is now async by default. Every API call is now awaited: res = await api.repos.get() . Top level await works directly in Jupyter and modern REPLs; in scripts, use asyncio.run . For sync code (which should be largely compatible with v1), use GhApi(sync=True) . See the Sync usage section of the docs for details. To stay on the old version, pin ghapi<2 . ghapi provides 100% always updated coverage of the entire GitHub API. Because we automatically convert the OpenAPI spec to a Pythonic API, ghapi is always up to date with the latest changes to GitHub APIs. Furthermore, because this is all…
read the full ghapi overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or ghapi more popular?
Insomnia has 40,111 GitHub stars and ghapi has 687. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and ghapi free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and ghapi under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and ghapi?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and ghapi 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 ghapi?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,111 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose ghapi if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.