head to head · open source
Insomnia vs rswag
Insomnia has 40,022 GitHub stars, 2,366 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rswag has 2,201 stars, 454 forks, 26 open issues and last shipped 26 days ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 1,718% (40,022 vs 2,201 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; rswag is written in Ruby under MIT. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, rswag 21%. Insomnia was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | rswag | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-08-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 454 |
| 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 rswag if
- You want the rswag feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and rswag 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 rswag
rswag is an MIT licensed Ruby gem that extends rspec rails request specs with a Swagger based DSL, so a Rails API team can describe and test its endpoints in one place and generate OpenAPI 3.0 files plus an embedded swagger ui from green tests.
read the full rswag overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or rswag more popular?
Insomnia has 40,022 GitHub stars and rswag has 2,201. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and rswag free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and rswag under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and rswag?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and rswag in Ruby. 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 rswag?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,022 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose rswag if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.