head to head · open source
Insomnia vs resgate
Insomnia has 40,109 GitHub stars, 2,387 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. resgate has 739 stars, 69 forks, 16 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 5,327% (40,109 vs 739 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; resgate is written in Go under MIT. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, resgate 9%. Insomnia was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (rest-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 | resgate | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 739 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-05-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 69 |
| 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 resgate if
- You want the resgate feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and resgate 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 resgate
Realtime API Gateway Synchronize Your Clients Visit Resgate.io for guides , live demos , and resources . Resgate is a Go project implementing a realtime API gateway for the RES protocol with NATS server as messaging system. It is a simple server that lets you create REST, real time, and RPC APIs, where all your clients are synchronized seamlessly. Used for building new REST APIs with real time functionality, or when creating single page applications using reactive frameworks such as React, Vue.js, or Modapp. Screen capture from the Book Collection Example. Try out the Live demo version yourself. How it works…
read the full resgate overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or resgate more popular?
Insomnia has 40,109 GitHub stars and resgate has 739. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and resgate free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and resgate under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and resgate?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and resgate in Go. 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 resgate?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,109 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose resgate if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.