head to head · open source
Insomnia vs swagger-jsdoc
Insomnia has 40,022 GitHub stars, 2,366 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. swagger-jsdoc has 1,788 stars, 229 forks, 47 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 2,138% (40,022 vs 1,788 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; swagger-jsdoc is written in JavaScript under MIT. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, swagger-jsdoc 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.
← all 13541 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Insomnia | swagger-jsdoc | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 229 |
| 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 swagger-jsdoc if
- You want the swagger-jsdoc feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and swagger-jsdoc 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 swagger-jsdoc
A JavaScript library that reads JSDoc annotated source files and generates an OpenAPI (Swagger) specification from them, built for Node.js API developers who want their API documentation to live next to the route handlers it describes.
read the full swagger-jsdoc overview →
More in Developer Tools
Related comparisons
More API Development & Testing projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the API Development & Testing field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or swagger-jsdoc more popular?
Insomnia has 40,022 GitHub stars and swagger-jsdoc has 1,788. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and swagger-jsdoc free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and swagger-jsdoc under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and swagger-jsdoc?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and swagger-jsdoc 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 swagger-jsdoc?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,022 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose swagger-jsdoc if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.