head to head · open source
Insomnia vs kiro-gateway
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars, 2,365 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kiro-gateway has 2,281 stars, 552 forks, 103 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 1,655% (40,021 vs 2,281 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; kiro-gateway is written in Python under AGPL-3.0. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, kiro-gateway 24%. 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 | kiro-gateway | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 2.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-05-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 552 |
| 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 kiro-gateway if
- You want the kiro-gateway feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and kiro-gateway 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 kiro-gateway
Kiro Gateway is an open source proxy API gateway that turns the Claude and other models available inside Kiro IDE and Kiro CLI (Amazon Q Developer / AWS CodeWhisperer) into OpenAI and Anthropic compatible API endpoints, for developers who want to reach those models from any client.
read the full kiro-gateway 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 kiro-gateway more popular?
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars and kiro-gateway has 2,281. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and kiro-gateway free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and kiro-gateway under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and kiro-gateway?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and kiro-gateway in Python. 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 kiro-gateway?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,021 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose kiro-gateway if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.