head to head · open source
OpenAPI-Specification vs hurl
OpenAPI-Specification has 31,291 GitHub stars, 9,145 forks, 80 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. hurl has 19,296 stars, 752 forks, 200 open issues and last shipped yesterday. OpenAPI-Specification leads on adoption by 62% (31,291 vs 19,296 stars). OpenAPI-Specification is written in Markdown under Apache-2.0; hurl is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. OpenAPI-Specification has attracted 29% as many forks as stars, hurl 4%. hurl 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
| OpenAPI-Specification | hurl | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 19K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Markdown | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-10-22 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.1K | ⑂ 752 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick OpenAPI-Specification if
- You weight community size — 31K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Markdown
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick hurl if
- You want the hurl feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and hurl fits your workflow better
About OpenAPI-Specification
The OpenAPI Specification The OpenAPI Specification is a community driven open specification within the OpenAPI Initiative, a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project. The OpenAPI Specification (OAS) defines a standard, programming language agnostic interface description for HTTP APIs. This allows both humans and computers to discover and understand the capabilities of a service without requiring access to source code, additional documentation, or inspection of network traffic. When properly defined via OpenAPI, a consumer can understand and interact with the remote service with a minimal amount of implementation…
read the full OpenAPI-Specification overview →
About hurl
What's Hurl? Hurl is a command line tool that runs HTTP requests defined in a simple plain text format . It can chain requests, capture values and evaluate queries on headers and body response. Hurl is very versatile: it can be used for both fetching data and testing HTTP sessions. Hurl makes it easy to work with HTML content, REST / SOAP / GraphQL APIs, or any other XML / JSON based APIs. Chaining multiple requests is easy: Also an HTTP Test Tool Hurl can run HTTP requests but can also be used to test HTTP responses . Different types of queries and predicates are supported, from [XPath] and [JSONPath] on body…
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Frequently asked questions
Is OpenAPI-Specification or hurl more popular?
OpenAPI-Specification has 31,291 GitHub stars and hurl has 19,296. OpenAPI-Specification has the larger community by that measure.
Are OpenAPI-Specification and hurl free?
Both are open source. OpenAPI-Specification is licensed under Apache-2.0 and hurl under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between OpenAPI-Specification and hurl?
OpenAPI-Specification is written in Markdown and hurl 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, OpenAPI-Specification or hurl?
Choose OpenAPI-Specification if you want the larger community (31,291 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose hurl if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.