head to head · open source
Insomnia vs microcks
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars, 2,365 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. microcks has 2,044 stars, 367 forks, 58 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Insomnia leads on adoption by 1,858% (40,021 vs 2,044 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; microcks is written in Java under Apache-2.0. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, microcks 18%. microcks 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 | microcks | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 2.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 367 |
| 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 microcks if
- You want the microcks feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and microcks 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 microcks
Microcks is an open source, cloud native API mocking and testing tool and a Cloud Native Computing Foundation incubating project. It lives in the developer tools and API development ecosystem, where teams need to exercise service contracts before implementations are ready or before changes are trusted. The project turns existing API and microservice assets, including OpenAPI specs, AsyncAPI specs, gRPC protobuf, GraphQL schema, Postman collections, and SoapUI projects, into live mocks for applications, testers, and integration pipelines.
read the full microcks overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or microcks more popular?
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars and microcks has 2,044. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and microcks free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and microcks under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and microcks?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and microcks 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 microcks?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,021 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose microcks if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.