head to head · open source
Insomnia vs rswag
Insomnia has 40,111 GitHub stars, 2,388 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rswag has 2,203 stars, 454 forks, 26 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 1,721% (40,111 vs 2,203 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 | 2026-11-02 | 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 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 rswag
rswag ========= OpenApi 3.0 compatible! Seeking maintainers! Got a pet bug that needs fixing? Just let us know in your issue/pr that you'd like to step up to help. Rswag extends rspec rails "request specs" with a Swagger based DSL for describing and testing API operations. You describe your API operations with a succinct, intuitive syntax, and it automatically runs the tests. Once you have green tests, run a rake task to auto generate corresponding OpenAPI files and expose them as YAML or JSON endpoints. Rswag also provides an embedded version of the awesome swagger ui that's powered by the exposed file. This…
read the full rswag overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or rswag more popular?
Insomnia has 40,111 GitHub stars and rswag has 2,203. 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 (40,111 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose rswag if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.