head to head · open source
Insomnia vs xh
Insomnia has 40,109 GitHub stars, 2,387 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. xh has 8,165 stars, 152 forks, 37 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 391% (40,109 vs 8,165 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; xh is written in Rust under MIT. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, xh 2%. Insomnia was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (http-client), 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 | xh | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 8.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 152 |
| 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 xh if
- You want the xh feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and xh fits your workflow better
About Insomnia
Insomnia API Client Insomnia is an open source, cross platform API client for GraphQL, REST, WebSockets, Server Sent Events (SSE), gRPC and any other HTTP compatible protocol. With Insomnia you can: Debug APIs using the most popular protocols and formats. Design APIs using the native OpenAPI editor and visual preview. Test APIs using native test suites and collection runner. Mock APIs using a cloud or self hosted mocking server. Build CI/CD pipelines using the native Insomnia CLI for linting and testing. Collaborate with others using the many collaboration features. And more including the ability to use 3rd…
read the full Insomnia overview →
About xh
xh xh is a friendly and fast tool for sending HTTP requests. It reimplements as much as possible of HTTPie's excellent design, with a focus on improved performance. Installation via cURL (Linux & macOS) via Powershell (Windows) via a package manager \ Make sure that you have Rust 1.85 or later installed \ \ You will need to install the MMRL CLI \ \ \ Built with native tls only. \ \ \ \ Available since Debian 13 and Ubuntu 25.04. Built with native tls only. \ \ \ \ \ Enable COPR repo via sudo dnf copr enable ducaale/xh [Huber]: [Mise]: [Magisk]: [KernelSU]: [Termux]: [Flox]: [Hermit]: via pre built binaries The…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or xh more popular?
Insomnia has 40,109 GitHub stars and xh has 8,165. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and xh free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and xh under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and xh?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and xh in Rust. 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 xh?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,109 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose xh if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.