head to head · open source
Yaak vs prest
Yaak has 19,243 GitHub stars, 817 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. prest has 4,619 stars, 322 forks, 153 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Yaak leads on adoption by 317% (19,243 vs 4,619 stars). Yaak is written in TypeScript under MIT; prest is written in Go under MIT. Yaak has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, prest 7%. Yaak 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
| Yaak | prest | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 19K | ★ 4.6K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 817 | ⑂ 322 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Yaak if
- You weight community size — 19K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick prest if
- You want the prest feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and prest fits your workflow better
About Yaak
Yaak is a desktop API client for REST, GraphQL, gRPC, WebSocket, and Server Sent Events. It is built with Tauri, Rust, and React, and it lives in the developer tools ecosystem for API development and testing. The project presents itself as an offline first, privacy first alternative to Postman, Insomnia, and Bruno.
About prest
pREST (PostgreSQL + REST) is a production ready, MIT licensed Go service that exposes an instant REST API and a read only Model Context Protocol (MCP) endpoint on top of any existing or new PostgreSQL database, built for teams that want CRUD, custom SQL routes, authentication and access control without hand writing a backend.
read the full prest overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Yaak or prest more popular?
Yaak has 19,243 GitHub stars and prest has 4,619. Yaak has the larger community by that measure.
Are Yaak and prest free?
Both are open source. Yaak is licensed under MIT and prest under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Yaak and prest?
Yaak is written in TypeScript and prest in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Yaak or prest?
Choose Yaak if you want the larger community (19,243 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose prest if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.