head to head
Postman vs Hoppscotch
Hoppscotch is the open source alternative to Postman — api development and testing platform. Here is the honest comparison.
Yes — Hoppscotch is a viable free replacement for Postman. Hoppscotch is open source under MIT, written in TypeScript, with 80,331 GitHub stars, 6,110 forks and 820 open issues; it was last pushed 33 hours ago. Postman costs from $14, while self-hosting Hoppscotch carries no licence fee — the trade is your operational time instead of a subscription. 2 other open source Postman alternatives are tracked here, led by Bruno at 47,022 stars. Hoppscotch ranks #1 of 3 tracked open source Postman alternatives by stars. The tracked set, by adoption: Bruno (47,022 stars), Insomnia (40,021 stars). Replacement criteria on this page: 4 reasons to move to Hoppscotch and 3 reasons to stay on Postman.
choose Hoppscotch if
- Your Postman bill is growing with seats or usage
- You need your data in a format and server you control
- Your compliance posture requires auditing the code that touches sensitive data
- You have (or can rent) a server and basic Docker comfort
stick with Postman if
- You need the polished onboarding and support SLAs of a commercial vendor
- Your team has zero capacity to operate software, even self-hosted-simple
- You depend on a Postman integration ecosystem that the OSS alternatives have not replicated
Side by side
| Hoppscotch (open source) | Postman | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free (self-hosted) | $14-$49/user/month |
| License | MIT | Proprietary |
| Source code | Public, auditable | Closed |
| Self-hosting | Yes — hoppscotch/hoppscotch | Cloud only |
| Data ownership | Your server, your format | Vendor's cloud |
| Community | ★ 80K · ⑂ 6.1K | — |
| Built with | TypeScript | — |
Why people look for a Postman alternative
About Hoppscotch
Hoppscotch is an open source API development ecosystem that provides a full featured client for designing, testing, and documenting APIs. It operates as a web based application, desktop app, and CLI tool, supporting offline, on premises, and cloud deployments. Built with TypeScript and licensed under MIT, it serves as a direct open source alternative to proprietary tools like Postman and Insomnia.
read the full Hoppscotch overview →
Other open source alternatives to Postman
last updated nightly · ranking method: github stars, live-tracked
Frequently asked questions
Is Hoppscotch a good replacement for Postman?
Hoppscotch is an open source alternative to Postman (API development and testing platform). It is written in TypeScript and licensed under MIT, with 80,331 GitHub stars.
Is Hoppscotch free compared to Postman?
Yes. Hoppscotch is open source — there is no licence fee, and you can self-host it. Postman is typically a paid subscription, so the trade-off is licence cost against the operational work of running it yourself.
How do I migrate from Postman to Hoppscotch?
Migration effort depends on the data formats involved. Check Hoppscotch's documentation for import options, and compare the feature table above to confirm the capabilities you depend on are covered before switching.