head to head · open source
Insomnia vs Mockoon
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars, 2,365 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Mockoon has 8,411 stars, 477 forks, 31 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 376% (40,021 vs 8,411 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; Mockoon is written in TypeScript under MIT. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, Mockoon 6%. 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 | Mockoon | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 8.4K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 477 |
| 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 Mockoon if
- You want the Mockoon feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Mockoon 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 Mockoon
Mockoon is an open source API mocking tool written in TypeScript and released under the MIT license. It ships as a desktop application built with Electron for designing and running mock servers locally, alongside a command line interface and a serverless package for running the same mock APIs in headless and cloud function environments. The project lives in the JavaScript and TypeScript ecosystem, distributed through NPM as @mockoon/cli and @mockoon/serverless , and through native package managers on each desktop platform. No remote deployment and no account are required to run it.
read the full Mockoon overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or Mockoon more popular?
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars and Mockoon has 8,411. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and Mockoon free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Mockoon under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and Mockoon?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and Mockoon in TypeScript. 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 Mockoon?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,021 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Mockoon if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.