head to head · open source
Insomnia vs wiremock
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars, 2,365 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. wiremock has 7,374 stars, 1,518 forks, 503 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 443% (40,021 vs 7,374 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; wiremock is written in Java under Apache-2.0. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, wiremock 21%. 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 | wiremock | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 7.4K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-15 |
| 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 wiremock if
- You want the wiremock 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 wiremock 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 wiremock
WireMock is an open source tool for mocking HTTP services, started in 2011 as a Java library by Tom Akehurst and now spanning multiple programming languages and technology stacks. It lives in the Java ecosystem, is licensed under Apache 2.0, and is published at wiremock.org. The project can run as a library or client wrapper in many languages, or as a standalone server, and it supports several approaches for creating mock APIs: in code, via its REST API, as JSON files, and by recording HTTP traffic proxied to another destination.
read the full wiremock overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or wiremock more popular?
Insomnia has 40,021 GitHub stars and wiremock has 7,374. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and wiremock free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and wiremock under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and wiremock?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and wiremock 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 wiremock?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,021 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose wiremock if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.