head to head · open source
Insomnia vs lambda-api
Insomnia has 40,111 GitHub stars, 2,388 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lambda-api has 1,470 stars, 127 forks, 47 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 2,629% (40,111 vs 1,470 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; lambda-api is written in JavaScript under MIT. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, lambda-api 9%. Insomnia was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (api), 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 | lambda-api | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 127 |
| 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 lambda-api if
- You want the lambda-api feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and lambda-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 lambda-api
Lightweight web framework for your serverless applications Lambda API is a lightweight web framework for AWS Lambda using AWS API Gateway Lambda Proxy Integration or ALB Lambda Target Support. This closely mirrors (and is based on) other web frameworks like Express.js and Fastify, but is significantly stripped down to maximize performance with Lambda's stateless, single run executions. Using AWS SDK v2? lambda api@v1 is using AWS SDK v3. If you are using AWS SDK v2, please use lambda api@v0.12.0. Simple Example For a full tutorial see How To: Build a Serverless API with Serverless, AWS Lambda and Lambda API. Why…
read the full lambda-api overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or lambda-api more popular?
Insomnia has 40,111 GitHub stars and lambda-api has 1,470. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and lambda-api free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and lambda-api under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and lambda-api?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and lambda-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 lambda-api?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,111 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose lambda-api if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.