head to head · open source
Insomnia vs spring-cloud-gateway
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars, 2,365 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. spring-cloud-gateway has 4,908 stars, 3,478 forks, 548 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Insomnia leads on adoption by 715% (40,021 vs 4,908 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; spring-cloud-gateway is written in Java under Apache-2.0. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, spring-cloud-gateway 71%. spring-cloud-gateway 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 | spring-cloud-gateway | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 4.9K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 3.5K |
| 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 spring-cloud-gateway if
- You want the spring-cloud-gateway feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and spring-cloud-gateway 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 spring-cloud-gateway
spring cloud gateway is an API Gateway built on Spring Framework and Spring Boot, and it lives in the Java, Spring Cloud, and microservices ecosystem. It sits in front of services and decides how incoming HTTP requests should be proxied to downstream endpoints.
read the full spring-cloud-gateway overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or spring-cloud-gateway more popular?
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars and spring-cloud-gateway has 4,908. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and spring-cloud-gateway free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and spring-cloud-gateway under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and spring-cloud-gateway?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and spring-cloud-gateway in Java. 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 spring-cloud-gateway?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,021 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose spring-cloud-gateway if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.