head to head · open source
Insomnia vs pingoo
Insomnia has 40,111 GitHub stars, 2,388 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pingoo has 1,041 stars, 41 forks, 22 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 3,753% (40,111 vs 1,041 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; pingoo is written in Rust under MIT. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, pingoo 4%. 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Insomnia | pingoo | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 1.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 41 |
| 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 pingoo if
- You want the pingoo feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and pingoo 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 pingoo
Pingoo The fast and secure Load Balancer / API Gateway / Reverse Proxy with built in service discovery, GeoIP, WAF, bot protection and much more Documentation Read the launch post Open Source load balancers and reverse proxies are stuck in the past century with a very slow pace of development and most of the important features reserved for "Enterprise Editions" which lead developers to use third party cloud services, exposing their users' traffic to legal, security and reliability risks. Pingoo is a modern Load Balancer / API Gateway / Reverse Proxy that run on your own servers and already have (or will have…
read the full pingoo overview →
More in Developer Tools
Related comparisons
More API Development & Testing projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the API Development & Testing field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or pingoo more popular?
Insomnia has 40,111 GitHub stars and pingoo has 1,041. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and pingoo free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and pingoo under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and pingoo?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and pingoo in Rust. 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 pingoo?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,111 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose pingoo if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.