head to head · open source
Insomnia vs swag
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars, 2,365 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. swag has 13,024 stars, 1,547 forks, 476 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 207% (40,021 vs 13,024 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; swag is written in Go under MIT. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, swag 12%. 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 | swag | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 13K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| 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 swag if
- You want the swag feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and swag 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 swag
Swag is a command line tool that converts Go source annotations into Swagger 2.0 documentation. It lives in the Go ecosystem, is distributed under the MIT license, and is maintained by the swaggo organization. The project has been active for nine years, with the most recent push recorded in September 2026, and it carries roughly 13,000 stars and 1,545 forks on GitHub.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or swag more popular?
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars and swag has 13,024. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and swag free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and swag under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and swag?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and swag in Go. 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 swag?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,021 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose swag if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.