head to head · open source
Insomnia vs nba_api
Insomnia has 40,111 GitHub stars, 2,388 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nba_api has 3,855 stars, 726 forks, 111 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 940% (40,111 vs 3,855 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; nba_api is written in Python under MIT. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, nba_api 19%. Insomnia was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (api-client, http-client), 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 | nba_api | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 3.9K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 726 |
| 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 nba_api if
- You want the nba_api feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and nba_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 nba_api
nba api An API Client Package to Access the APIs of NBA.com nba api is an API Client for www.nba.com . This package intends to make the APIs of NBA.com easily accessible and provide extensive documentation about them. Getting Started nba api requires Python 3.10+ along with the requests and numpy packages. While pandas is not required, it is required to work with Pandas DataFrames. NBA Official Stats NBA Live Data Additional Examples Requests/Response Options Proxy Support, Custom Headers, and Timeout Settings Return Types and Raw Responses Static Data Sets Reduce HTTP requests for common and frequently accessed…
read the full nba_api overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or nba_api more popular?
Insomnia has 40,111 GitHub stars and nba_api has 3,855. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and nba_api free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and nba_api under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and nba_api?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and nba_api 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 nba_api?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,111 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose nba_api if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.