head to head · open source
Insomnia vs serverless-express
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars, 2,365 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. serverless-express has 5,262 stars, 675 forks, 101 open issues and last shipped 5 months ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 661% (40,021 vs 5,262 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; serverless-express is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, serverless-express 13%. 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 | serverless-express | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 5.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-04-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 675 |
| 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 serverless-express if
- You want the serverless-express 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 serverless-express 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 serverless-express
Serverless Express is a JavaScript library that runs Express and other Node.js web frameworks on AWS serverless technologies such as Lambda, API Gateway, Lambda@Edge, and related event sources. The package is published as @codegenie/serverless express, and the repository describes it as a tool for REST APIs and other web applications deployed as serverless functions instead of long running servers.
read the full serverless-express overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or serverless-express more popular?
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars and serverless-express has 5,262. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and serverless-express free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and serverless-express under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and serverless-express?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and serverless-express 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 serverless-express?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,021 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose serverless-express if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.