API Tools
5 open source tools compared. Sorted by stars — scroll down for our analysis.
| Tool | Stars | Velocity | Language | License | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Hoppscotch Open source API development ecosystem | 78.6k | — | TypeScript | MIT License | 82 |
 Bruno Open source IDE for exploring and testing APIs | 42.2k | — | JavaScript | MIT License | 79 |
 Insomnia Cross-platform API client for REST, GraphQL, gRPC | 38.2k | +105/wk | TypeScript | Apache License 2.0 | 79 |
| 3.7k | — | — | 51 | ||
| 1.4k | — | Go | — | 42 |
Our Analysis
Hoppscotch is Postman without the bloat, the account requirements, or the $30k enterprise invoices. Open source, browser-first, and you can send REST, GraphQL, or WebSocket requests in seconds with zero installation. For quick API testing from any machine, nothing is faster. Postman is the 800-pound gorilla with 30M+ users and the deepest feature set. Bruno stores collections as plain text in your Git repo — better for version-controlled workflows. Insomnia (Kong-backed) has the best GraphQL experience. But Hoppscotch wins on accessibility: open a browser tab and you're testing. Use Hoppscotch if you want lightweight, zero-install API testing or you're allergic to creating yet another SaaS account. The self-hosted option is MIT-licensed with unlimited everything. The catch: it's browser-first, which means no native OS integration, no CLI for CI pipelines (unlike Bruno or Postman), and collaboration features are less mature than Postman's decade-old platform. For team-scale API development with mock servers and documentation, Postman still has more depth.
Bruno stores your API collections as plain text files in your Git repo. No cloud sync, no account, no telemetry — just `.bru` files alongside your code. For developers who believe API specs should be version-controlled like everything else, Bruno is the Postman replacement they've been wanting. Postman is the incumbent with the deepest feature set but increasingly SaaS-dependent with cloud storage by default. Hoppscotch is browser-first and zero-install. Insomnia (Kong) has the best GraphQL experience. Bruno trades features for philosophy: offline-first, Git-native, no vendor lock-in. Use Bruno if your team uses Git for everything and wants API collections to live in the repo, reviewed in PRs, and never stored on someone else's cloud. The catch: Bruno is younger and less featured than Postman — no mock servers, limited team collaboration beyond Git workflows, and no CI-integrated test runner with the maturity of Newman (Postman's CLI). The `.bru` format is proprietary to Bruno, not an open standard. And for non-technical team members who just need to poke an API, Hoppscotch's browser UI is more accessible.