Hurl vs Insomnia

Comparing two open source alternatives to Postman and Paw and Apidog and Thunder Client and ReadyAPI. Use the comparison below to decide which one fits your needs.

Hurl

Apache-2.0

Run and test HTTP requests with plain text — a simple yet powerful command-line tool for API testing.

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Insomnia

Apache-2.0

The open-source, cross-platform API client for GraphQL, REST, WebSockets, SSE and gRPC. With Cloud, Local and Git storage.

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Side-by-side comparison

	Hurl	Insomnia
License	Apache-2.0	Apache-2.0
Self-hostable	No	No
GitHub Stars	19,161	39,955
Forks	738	2,363
Open Issues	203	865
Last Commit	Aug 26, 2026	Aug 26, 2026
First Released	Aug 25, 2020	Apr 23, 2016
Categories	API Development & Testing Tools	API Development & Testing Tools
Tags	#API #api client #cli #testing #curl	#API #rest #http client #api client

GitHub stars over time

Hurl

Insomnia39,955

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