head to head · open source
Insomnia vs ts-rest
Insomnia has 40,022 GitHub stars, 2,366 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped today. ts-rest has 3,337 stars, 177 forks, 141 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 1,099% (40,022 vs 3,337 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; ts-rest is written in TypeScript under MIT. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, ts-rest 5%. 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 | ts-rest | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 3.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-02-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 177 |
| 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 ts-rest if
- You want the ts-rest feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and ts-rest 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 ts-rest
ts rest Incrementally adoptable RPC like client and server helpers for a magical end to end typed experience 🪄 Join us on Discord for help, feedback, and discussions! Introduction ts rest offers a simple way to define a contract for your API, which can be both consumed and implemented by your application, giving you end to end type safety without the hassle or code generation. Features End to end type safety 🛟 RPC like client side API ⚡️ Small Bundle Size 📉 No Code Generation 🏃♀️ Zod support for runtime validation 🔒 Full optional OpenAPI integration 📝 👉 Start reading the official Quickstart Guide 👈 Super…
read the full ts-rest overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or ts-rest more popular?
Insomnia has 40,022 GitHub stars and ts-rest has 3,337. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and ts-rest free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and ts-rest under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and ts-rest?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and ts-rest 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 ts-rest?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,022 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose ts-rest if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.