Send API requests, inspect responses and organise request collections.
Free and open source (MIT licence per GitHub). Web, desktop and CLI clients, with cloud, offline and self-hosted routes.
Developer tools
Insomnia
Free optionLocal
Send API requests, organise collections and run them locally.
What you can use it for
Send API requests, organise collections and run them locally.
- Local Scratch Pad can be used without an account.
- Free core includes environments and unlimited collection runs.
Workflow coverage and comparison notes
Local API request authoring, environments, collections and collection runs. Not full Postman cloud collaboration, monitoring or unlimited hosted mocking.
Before you switch
Replace everyday local API request authoring, environments, collections and collection runs with Insomnia Essentials. Free unlimited local/cloud projects and runs; Git Sync is free for up to 3 users. Local requests need no hosted server or paid model API, but the APIs being called may charge separately. Cloud mocks have 1,000 free requests/month. Not managed production monitoring, equivalent cloud automation, shared specification publishing or enterprise governance; scripts/imports require migration checks. Both comparison targets also have lasting free plans; this is an alternative workflow choice, not a claim that all their users must pay.
Alternatives to these paid apps
Each comparison covers the workflow described above, rather than every paid feature.
More for the same workflow
See alternatives →
HTTPieSend HTTP requests and inspect API responses from the terminal.
Free and open source (BSD-3-Clause licence per GitHub).
REST Client for VS CodeSend HTTP requests from version-controlled files inside VS Code.
Free extension · local request files · no request quota