head to head · open source
Insomnia vs just-api
Insomnia has 40,111 GitHub stars, 2,388 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. just-api has 815 stars, 36 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped 9 months ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 4,822% (40,111 vs 815 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; just-api is written in JavaScript under MIT. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, just-api 4%. Insomnia was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (api, graphql), 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 | just-api | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 815 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-02-12 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 36 |
| 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 just-api if
- You want the just-api feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and just-api 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 just-api
Just API Just API is a declarative, specification based test framework for REST , GraphQL APIs. Users can test APIs without writing code, but they can also tap into code when they want to. It reads API test specification from YAML files and runs them in serial/parallel mode. Test reports can be generated in several formats including HTML and JSON. In simple terms, users build a test suite by providing a set of request and response validation specification in a YAML file. Each suite can have one or more specs. Just API builds the request, sends it to server and validates response as per the specification. One can…
read the full just-api overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or just-api more popular?
Insomnia has 40,111 GitHub stars and just-api has 815. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and just-api free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and just-api under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and just-api?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and just-api in JavaScript. 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 just-api?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,111 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose just-api if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.