head to head · open source
Insomnia vs litestar
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars, 2,365 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. litestar has 8,467 stars, 646 forks, 343 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Insomnia leads on adoption by 373% (40,021 vs 8,467 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; litestar is written in Python under MIT. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, litestar 8%. 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 | litestar | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 8.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 646 |
| 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 litestar if
- You want the litestar feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and litestar 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 litestar
Litestar is an open source ASGI framework for Python, distributed under the MIT license and hosted in the litestar org GitHub organization. It describes itself as light, flexible and extensible, and it is built to scale. The project has been in development for five years, has accumulated 8,462 stars and 642 forks, and its most recent push was on 11 September 2026. Documentation lives at docs.litestar.dev, and the project publishes releases through PyPI.
read the full litestar overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or litestar more popular?
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars and litestar has 8,467. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and litestar free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and litestar under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and litestar?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and litestar 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 litestar?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,021 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose litestar if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.