head to head · open source
Insomnia vs just-api
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars, 2,365 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. just-api has 814 stars, 36 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 4,817% (40,021 vs 814 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 | ★ 814 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 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 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 just-api
Just API is a declarative, specification based test framework for REST and GraphQL APIs, written in JavaScript and distributed under the MIT license. It lives in the Node.js ecosystem and runs from the npm package just api . Instead of writing test code, a user describes a request and the response validation rules in a YAML file, and the framework builds the request, sends it to the server, and checks the response against that specification. Each suite can contain one or more specs, and suites run in serial or parallel mode.
read the full just-api overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or just-api more popular?
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars and just-api has 814. 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 (40,021 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.