head to head · open source
Insomnia vs zod-to-openapi
Insomnia has 40,022 GitHub stars, 2,366 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. zod-to-openapi has 1,619 stars, 103 forks, 39 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 2,372% (40,022 vs 1,619 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; zod-to-openapi is written in TypeScript under MIT. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, zod-to-openapi 6%. 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 | zod-to-openapi | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 103 |
| 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 zod-to-openapi if
- You want the zod-to-openapi feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and zod-to-openapi 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 zod-to-openapi
A TypeScript library from Astea Solutions that generates OpenAPI (Swagger) documentation directly from Zod schemas, for API developers and teams who already validate requests with Zod and do not want to maintain a second, hand written specification.
read the full zod-to-openapi overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or zod-to-openapi more popular?
Insomnia has 40,022 GitHub stars and zod-to-openapi has 1,619. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and zod-to-openapi free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and zod-to-openapi under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and zod-to-openapi?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and zod-to-openapi 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 zod-to-openapi?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,022 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose zod-to-openapi if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.