head to head · open source
Insomnia vs zodios
Insomnia has 40,111 GitHub stars, 2,388 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped yesterday. zodios has 1,918 stars, 57 forks, 23 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 1,991% (40,111 vs 1,918 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; zodios is written in TypeScript under MIT. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, zodios 3%. 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Insomnia | zodios | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 1.9K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 57 |
| 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 zodios if
- You want the zodios feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and zodios 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 zodios
Zodios Zodios is a typescript api client and an optional api server with auto completion features backed by axios and zod and express Documentation What is it ? It's an axios compatible API client and an optional expressJS compatible API server with the following features: really simple centralized API declaration typescript autocompletion in your favorite IDE for URL and parameters typescript response types parameters and responses schema thanks to zod response schema validation powerfull plugins like fetch adapter or auth automatic injection all axios features available @tanstack/query wrappers for react and…
read the full zodios 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 zodios more popular?
Insomnia has 40,111 GitHub stars and zodios has 1,918. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and zodios free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and zodios under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and zodios?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and zodios 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 zodios?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,111 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose zodios if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.