Postman vs Insomnia vs Bruno: Best API Client for Developers in 2025

Three tools dominate the conversation when developers argue about API clients. Postman has the brand recognition and the enterprise contracts. Insomnia has the loyal following and the clean interface. Bruno arrived in 2022 with a radical idea: what if your API collections lived in plain files inside your Git repository instead of someone else’s cloud?

That question has aged well. As of early 2025, Bruno’s GitHub repository has passed 30,000 stars, and the tool shows up regularly in developer surveys and “what are you switching to?” threads. Meanwhile, Postman’s 2023 decision to remove the Scratch Pad and push users toward cloud-synced workspaces triggered a visible migration wave, and Insomnia’s 2023 acquisition by Kong changed its trajectory in ways longtime users are still debating.

So which one should you actually use? The honest answer depends on your team size, your compliance requirements, and how much you care about where your data lives. Here’s a breakdown.

The Contenders at a Glance

Postman — Founded in 2014, now used by more than 35 million developers according to the company, with over 500,000 organizations on the platform. It’s the most feature-complete option, spanning API design, testing, documentation, mocking, and monitoring. Free tier available; paid plans start around $14/user/month (billed annually) for the Basic tier, with Professional at roughly $29/user/month.

Insomnia — Originally built by Gregory Schier in 2016, acquired by Kong in 2023. It’s known for a fast, focused UI and strong support for GraphQL and gRPC alongside REST. Free tier available; Individual plan runs about $8/month, Team around $16/user/month.

Bruno — Open source (MIT licensed), local-first, Git-native. Collections are stored as .bru plain-text files on your filesystem. A free desktop app plus a paid “Golden Edition” for teams. No mandatory cloud account.

Data Privacy and Where Your Requests Live

This is the fault line that separates the three tools.

Postman stores collections in its cloud by default. In 2023, the company removed the offline Scratch Pad from newer versions, requiring users to sign in and sync. Postman later reintroduced offline capabilities after pushback, but the default posture remains cloud-first. For teams handling regulated data, that’s a conversation with legal, not just engineering.

Insomnia historically stored data locally, but Kong has been steering users toward cloud sync and account-based collaboration. The free tier still works locally, though the direction of travel is clear.

Bruno’s entire pitch is the opposite: nothing leaves your machine unless you explicitly sync it. Collections are files. You commit them to Git, review changes in pull requests, and share them the same way you share code. For developers at companies with strict data governance, this is often the deciding factor.

Collaboration and Version Control

Postman’s collaboration story is mature. Workspaces, roles, comments, and shared environments work well for large teams. But version control is Postman’s own system — you’re not diffing collections in Git. Postman does offer Git integration for its API definitions, but it’s not the same as your collection being a file in your repo.

Insomnia supports Git sync for collections in some configurations, but it’s less central to the product than it is for Bruno.

Bruno wins this category outright for teams that live in Git. A collection change shows up as a readable diff. Merge conflicts are resolvable like any other text file. There’s no export step, no JSON blob to parse, no “who changed the environment variable?” mystery.

The tradeoff: Bruno’s collaboration features are younger and thinner than Postman’s. If you need granular role-based access control and audit logs out of the box, you’ll feel the gap.

Feature Depth: Testing, Scripting, and Protocols

Postman is the deepest tool here, and it’s not close. Pre-request scripts, test scripts, collection runners, Newman (its CLI runner) for CI, mock servers, API documentation generation, and a monitoring service — it’s a full platform. If your team runs automated API tests in CI, Postman plus Newman is a well-trodden path.

Insomnia covers the essentials: scripting with JavaScript, environment variables, request chaining, and excellent GraphQL support with schema introspection and autocomplete. Its gRPC support is strong too. For developers who mostly want to fire requests and inspect responses without a lot of ceremony, Insomnia’s UI is frequently described as faster and less cluttered than Postman’s.

Bruno handles REST, GraphQL, and gRPC, supports scripting, and includes a CLI (bru) for CI runs. It covers the 80% case well. Where it lags is the long tail: advanced mocking, built-in documentation hosting, and the ecosystem of integrations Postman has accumulated over a decade.

Performance and Resource Use

Postman is an Electron app and has a reputation for being heavy — users regularly report high memory usage, especially with large collections or many open tabs. Insomnia is also Electron-based but generally feels lighter in day-to-day use. Bruno is Electron too, but because it isn’t syncing large workspaces or running a cloud backend, it typically starts faster and stays leaner.

None of these are native apps, so if minimal resource use is your top priority, you’re looking at tools like curl, HTTPie, or a VS Code extension instead. Among the three, Bruno and Insomnia tend to feel snappier than Postman in casual use.

Pricing Reality Check

Postman’s free tier is generous for individuals, but team features get expensive fast. At 10 developers on the Professional plan, you’re looking at roughly $3,500/year.

Insomnia’s pricing under Kong has drawn criticism. The Individual plan is cheap, but some users report that features previously free have moved behind paid tiers, and the enterprise pricing isn’t public.

Bruno is free and open source for individual use. The paid team offering is comparatively inexpensive, and because collections live in your own Git repo, you’re not paying per-seat for storage or sync you could handle yourself.

So Which One Should You Pick?

Choose Postman if you need the broadest feature set, your organization already standardizes on it, or you rely on automated testing, mocking, and documentation in one platform. It’s the safest choice for large enterprises with complex API workflows.

Choose Insomnia if you want a cleaner, faster interface, work heavily with GraphQL or gRPC, and don’t need Postman’s full platform. It’s a strong middle ground for individual developers and small teams.

Choose Bruno if data ownership, Git-native workflows, and open source matter to you. It’s the best fit for privacy-conscious teams, regulated industries, and developers who want their API collections treated like code. You’ll give up some polish and enterprise features in exchange.

The Takeaway

There’s no universal winner in 2025 — the right choice tracks your constraints. If your API collections are sensitive and your team already lives in Git, Bruno’s local-first model is a genuine architectural advantage, not just a preference. If you need a full API lifecycle platform and your legal team is comfortable with cloud storage, Postman remains the most capable option. Insomnia sits comfortably between them, offering a refined experience for developers who want speed without the platform overhead. Try all three against a real project before committing — the differences that matter to you will show up within an afternoon.