head to head · open source
Insomnia vs smocker
Insomnia has 40,111 GitHub stars, 2,388 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. smocker has 1,287 stars, 73 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Insomnia leads on adoption by 3,017% (40,111 vs 1,287 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; smocker is written in TypeScript under MIT. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, smocker 6%. 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), 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 | smocker | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 1.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 73 |
| 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 smocker if
- You want the smocker feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and smocker 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 smocker
Smocker (server mock) is a simple and efficient HTTP mock server. The documentation is available on smocker.dev. Table of contents Installation With Docker Manual Deployment Healthcheck User Interface Usage Hello, World! Mock format schema Development Backend Frontend Docker Caddy HTTPS Authors Contributors Installation With Docker Manual Deployment Healthcheck User Interface Smocker exposes a configuration user interface. You can access it in your web browser on Usage Smocker exposes two ports: 8080 is the mock server port. It will expose the routes you register through the configuration port 8081 is the…
read the full smocker overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or smocker more popular?
Insomnia has 40,111 GitHub stars and smocker has 1,287. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and smocker free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and smocker under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and smocker?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and smocker in TypeScript. 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 smocker?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,111 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose smocker if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.