head to head · open source
Insomnia vs RWKV-Runner
Insomnia has 40,023 GitHub stars, 2,367 forks, 874 open issues and last shipped today. RWKV-Runner has 6,482 stars, 601 forks, 178 open issues and last shipped 16 days ago. Insomnia leads on adoption by 517% (40,023 vs 6,482 stars). Insomnia is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; RWKV-Runner is written in TypeScript under MIT. Insomnia has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, RWKV-Runner 9%. Insomnia was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (api, api-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 | RWKV-Runner | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 6.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 601 |
| 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 RWKV-Runner if
- You want the RWKV-Runner feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and RWKV-Runner 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 RWKV-Runner
RWKV Runner is a management and startup tool for RWKV, an open source large language model that is available for commercial use. It ships as a lightweight executable of only a few megabytes and automates the work of getting a model running, so that the user does not have to assemble the runtime, dependencies, and serving stack by hand. The project is written in TypeScript and built with Wails, and it is distributed under the MIT license from the josStorer repository. It lives in the RWKV ecosystem and in the broader local inference tooling space, with a companion site at rwkv.com.
read the full RWKV-Runner overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Insomnia or RWKV-Runner more popular?
Insomnia has 40,023 GitHub stars and RWKV-Runner has 6,482. Insomnia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Insomnia and RWKV-Runner free?
Both are open source. Insomnia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and RWKV-Runner under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Insomnia and RWKV-Runner?
Insomnia is written in TypeScript and RWKV-Runner 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 RWKV-Runner?
Choose Insomnia if you want the larger community (40,023 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose RWKV-Runner if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.