head to head · open source
Insomnia vs platformatic
Insomnia has 40,022 GitHub stars, 2,366 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. platformatic has 2,041 stars, 203 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Insomnia leads on adoption by 1,861% (40,022 vs 2,041 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; platformatic is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, platformatic 10%. platformatic was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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 | platformatic | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 2.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 203 |
| 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 platformatic if
- You want the platformatic feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and platformatic 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 platformatic
Platformatic is an Apache 2.0 open source monorepo whose flagship runtime, Watt, is a Node.js application server that takes any Node.js application written in any framework and runs it as a worker thread so teams can ship faster and scale in containerized environments.
read the full platformatic overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or platformatic more popular?
Insomnia has 40,022 GitHub stars and platformatic has 2,041. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and platformatic free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and platformatic under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and platformatic?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and platformatic 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 platformatic?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,022 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose platformatic if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.