head to head · open source
Insomnia vs pywikibot
Insomnia has 40,022 GitHub stars, 2,366 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped today. pywikibot has 775 stars, 221 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 5,064% (40,022 vs 775 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; pywikibot is written in Python under MIT. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, pywikibot 29%. 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-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 | pywikibot | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 775 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 221 |
| 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 pywikibot if
- You want the pywikibot feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and pywikibot 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 pywikibot
.. image:: :alt: GitHub CI :target: .. image:: :alt: Code coverage :target: .. image:: :alt: Python :target: .. image:: :alt: Top language :target: .. image:: :alt: Pywikibot release :target: .. image:: :alt: wheel :target: .. image:: :alt: Total downloads :target: .. image:: :alt: Monthly downloads :target: .. image:: :alt: Last commit :target: Pywikibot The Pywikibot framework is a Python library that interfaces with the MediaWiki API version 1.31 or higher. Also included are various general function scripts that can be adapted for different tasks. For further information about the library excluding scripts see…
read the full pywikibot overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or pywikibot more popular?
Insomnia has 40,022 GitHub stars and pywikibot has 775. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and pywikibot free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and pywikibot under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and pywikibot?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and pywikibot 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 pywikibot?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,022 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose pywikibot if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.