# Insomnia > Open-source API client from Kong supporting REST, GraphQL, gRPC, and WebSockets. Canonical: https://www.findalternate.com/insomnia Last updated: 2026-09-11 Open-source API client from Kong supporting REST, GraphQL, gRPC, and WebSockets. ## Key facts - **Website:** https://insomnia.rest/ - **Category:** Developer Tools - **Pricing:** FREEMIUM - **Platforms:** Windows, macOS, Linux - **Launched:** 2026-06-29 - **Maker:** adi - **Likes:** 0 - **Points:** 0 - **Comments:** 0 ## Key features - Multi-Protocol API Client: Test REST, GraphQL, gRPC, WebSockets, and Server-Sent Events from a single application. - Native Git Sync & Local Storage: Store API specs and test collections in local Git repositories for team collaboration. - OpenAPI Spec Design & Linting: Visually write, lint, and preview OpenAPI specifications with integrated schema validation. - Environment Variables & Chaining: Manage multi-environment variables and chain response tokens into subsequent requests. ## Recommended for Backend developers, QA engineers, and API designers wanting a fast, clean, and developer-friendly alternative to Postman. ## Pros and cons Pros: - Clean, lightweight interface without unnecessary enterprise bloat. - Excellent GraphQL support with schema autocomplete and explorer. - Git-sync enables storing API collections directly in version control. Cons: - Account login requirements in newer versions have caused user friction. - Automated collection testing runners are less mature than Postman's Newman. ## Conclusion Insomnia is the sports car of API development. For years, Postman was the only viable tool for testing APIs, but as it grew into a multi-billion dollar enterprise behemoth, it became bloated, slow, and overwhelming. Insomnia stripped the API client down to its absolute bare essentials. It provided developers with a clean, blindingly fast interface to do the one thing they actually wanted to do: send a request, get a JSON response, and get back to writing code. ## Tags api, testing, opensource ## Alternates - [k6](https://www.findalternate.com/k6): Open-source, developer-centric load testing tool for API and performance testing. — FREEMIUM, 0 likes - [SwaggerHub](https://www.findalternate.com/swaggerhub): Design-first API platform for building, documenting, and governing APIs using the OpenAPI spec. — FREEMIUM, 0 likes - [VirtuProbe Studio](https://www.findalternate.com/virtuprobe-studio): Cross-protocol request workbench for integration and penetration testing. 11 protocols, local-first, no account needed. Put your tests together on your own or supervise your agent helping you achieve your goals via MCP. Chain your tests or script your scenarios in JS or Groovy. Free tier covers HTTP, DNS and SMTP testing. — FREEMIUM, 0 likes - [Reqit](https://www.findalternate.com/reqit): Reqit is a local-first, git-native API client built for developers who want their API collections to live alongside their code instead of locked away in someone else's cloud. Every collection is stored as plain files in your repo, so requests, environments, and test suites version naturally with git: diffable, mergeable, and reviewable just like any other part of your codebase. Beyond the basics of sending requests and organizing collections, reqit includes a mock server for simulating endpoints during development, a Collection Runner with assertions for automated testing, and full OpenAPI import/export so you can move in and out of existing specs without friction. It supports mTLS client certificate authentication for teams working with secured internal APIs, and a BYOK (bring-your-own-key) AI layer that lets you plug in OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Groq, or Ollama for AI-assisted workflows inside the app. For teams building AI agents, reqit ships with its own MCP server, exposing your API collections as tools an agent can call directly, plus Agent Lens, a linter and eval workbench that checks whether your API surface is actually "tool-ready" for agentic use. Collections can also be published via Collection Showcase, with support for custom domains, making it easy to share polished, browsable API documentation without standing up separate infrastructure. The whole experience is wrapped in a distinctive visual identity, deep blacks accented with a signature cyan, giving reqit a sharp, focused feel that stands apart from the cluttered, cloud-first tools it's meant to replace. At its core, reqit is about giving developers ownership: your API workflows shouldn't be trapped in a vendor's database. They should be yours, versioned, portable, and as hackable as the rest of your stack. — FREE, 0 likes - [Hoppscotch](https://www.findalternate.com/hoppscotch): Lightweight, open-source API client that runs entirely in the browser with zero installation. — FREEMIUM, 0 likes - [Thunder Client](https://www.findalternate.com/thunder-client): Lightweight REST API client that lives directly inside the VS Code extension marketplace. — FREEMIUM, 0 likes - [HTTPie](https://www.findalternate.com/httpie): Developer-friendly command-line HTTP client with intuitive syntax and colorized output. — FREEMIUM, 0 likes - [Bruno](https://www.findalternate.com/bruno): Git-native, offline-first API client that stores collections as plain text files for version control. — FREE, 0 likes - [Postman](https://www.findalternate.com/postman): The most widely used API platform for building, testing, and documenting REST and GraphQL APIs. — FREEMIUM, 0 likes - [geogit](https://www.findalternate.com/geogit): sdfghj ghjg hjg hg hg hhj — PREMIUM, 0 likes ## Related - [Developer Tools category](https://www.findalternate.com/category/developer-tools) - [Compare Insomnia and k6](https://www.findalternate.com/compare/insomnia-vs-k6) - [FindAlternate homepage](https://www.findalternate.com/)