head to head · open source
Insomnia vs smocker
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars, 2,365 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. smocker has 1,284 stars, 71 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 3,017% (40,021 vs 1,284 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 | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 71 |
| 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 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 smocker
Smocker is an open source HTTP mock server and proxy for API development and testing. It lives in the developer tools ecosystem, where teams simulate third party services, stub routes, and inspect interactions without building a full backend. The project is MIT licensed, written in TypeScript, and distributed as a Docker image or manual deployment archive.
read the full smocker overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or smocker more popular?
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars and smocker has 1,284. 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 (40,021 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose smocker if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.