head to head · open source
Insomnia vs gnostic
Insomnia has 40,111 GitHub stars, 2,388 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gnostic has 2,311 stars, 280 forks, 119 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 1,636% (40,111 vs 2,311 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; gnostic is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, gnostic 12%. 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 | gnostic | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 2.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-08-10 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 280 |
| 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 gnostic if
- You want the gnostic 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 gnostic 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 gnostic
⨁ gnostic This repository contains a Go command line tool which converts JSON and YAML OpenAPI descriptions to and from equivalent Protocol Buffer representations. Protocol Buffers provide a language neutral, platform neutral, extensible mechanism for serializing structured data. gnostic 's Protocol Buffer models for the OpenAPI Specification can be used to generate code that includes data structures with explicit fields for the elements of an OpenAPI description. This makes it possible for developers to work with OpenAPI descriptions in type safe ways, which is particularly useful in strongly typed languages…
read the full gnostic overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or gnostic more popular?
Insomnia has 40,111 GitHub stars and gnostic has 2,311. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and gnostic free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and gnostic under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and gnostic?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and gnostic 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 gnostic?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,111 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose gnostic if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.