head to head · open source
Yaak vs hurl
Yaak has 19,399 GitHub stars, 840 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hurl has 19,296 stars, 752 forks, 200 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Yaak leads on adoption by 1% (19,399 vs 19,296 stars). Yaak is written in TypeScript under MIT; hurl is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. Yaak has attracted 4% 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. The two share 2 topic tags (http, http-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
| Yaak | hurl | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 19K | ★ 19K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 840 | ⑂ 752 |
| 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 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 Yaak
💫 Yaak ➟ Desktop API Client 💫 A fast, privacy first API client for REST, GraphQL, SSE, WebSocket, and gRPC – built with Tauri, Rust, and React. Development is funded by community purchased licenses . You can also become a sponsor to have your logo appear below. 💖 Features Yaak is an offline first API client designed to stay out of your way while giving you everything you need when you need it. Built with Tauri, Rust, and React, it’s fast, lightweight, and private. No telemetry, no VC funding, and no cloud lock in. 🌐 Work with any API Import collections from Postman, Insomnia, OpenAPI, Swagger, or Curl. Send…
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 Yaak or hurl more popular?
Yaak has 19,399 GitHub stars and hurl has 19,296. Yaak has the larger community by that measure.
Are Yaak and hurl free?
Both are open source. Yaak is licensed under MIT and hurl under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Yaak and hurl?
Yaak is written in TypeScript 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, Yaak or hurl?
Choose Yaak if you want the larger community (19,399 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose hurl if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.