head to head · open source
Insomnia vs hurl
Insomnia has 40,111 GitHub stars, 2,388 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hurl has 19,296 stars, 752 forks, 200 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Insomnia leads on adoption by 108% (40,111 vs 19,296 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; hurl is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, hurl 4%. hurl was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (curl, http-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 | hurl | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 19K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 752 |
| 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 hurl if
- You want the hurl feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and hurl 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 hurl
What's Hurl? Hurl is a command line tool that runs HTTP requests defined in a simple plain text format . It can chain requests, capture values and evaluate queries on headers and body response. Hurl is very versatile: it can be used for both fetching data and testing HTTP sessions. Hurl makes it easy to work with HTML content, REST / SOAP / GraphQL APIs, or any other XML / JSON based APIs. Chaining multiple requests is easy: Also an HTTP Test Tool Hurl can run HTTP requests but can also be used to test HTTP responses . Different types of queries and predicates are supported, from [XPath] and [JSONPath] on body…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or hurl more popular?
Insomnia has 40,111 GitHub stars and hurl has 19,296. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and hurl free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and hurl under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and hurl?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and hurl in Rust. 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 hurl?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,111 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose hurl if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.