head to head · open source
Insomnia vs one-api
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars, 2,365 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. one-api has 36,932 stars, 6,867 forks, 1,036 open issues and last shipped 8 months ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 8% (40,021 vs 36,932 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; one-api is written in JavaScript under MIT. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, one-api 19%. 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 | one-api | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 37K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-01-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 6.9K |
| 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 one-api if
- You want the one-api feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and one-api 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 one-api
One API is a self hosted LLM API management and key redistribution system that exposes many model providers through the standard OpenAI API format, aimed at developers, teams and operators who want a single endpoint, a single key model and a single quota surface across providers.
read the full one-api overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or one-api more popular?
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars and one-api has 36,932. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and one-api free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and one-api under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and one-api?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and one-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 one-api?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,021 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose one-api if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.