head to head · open source
Insomnia vs karate
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars, 2,365 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. karate has 8,957 stars, 2,044 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Insomnia leads on adoption by 347% (40,021 vs 8,957 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; karate is written in Java under MIT. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, karate 23%. 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.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Insomnia | karate | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 9.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 2.0K |
| 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 karate if
- You want the karate feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and karate 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 karate
Karate is an open source, MIT licensed Java framework that combines API testing, mocks, performance testing and UI automation into a single unified tool, aimed at teams that need to test APIs and services without stitching several separate tools together.
read the full karate overview →
More in Developer Tools
Related comparisons
More API Development & Testing projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the API Development & Testing field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or karate more popular?
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars and karate has 8,957. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and karate free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and karate under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and karate?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and karate in Java. 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 karate?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,021 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose karate if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.