Postman vs Insomnia vs Bruno: Which API Testing Tool Wins in 2025?
Postman has been the default answer to “how do I test this API?” for nearly a decade. That’s changing. In the 2024 State of the API report from Postman, 65% of respondents said they use the company’s tools—still dominant, but down from previous years. Meanwhile, Insomnia has built a loyal following among developers who want less clutter, and Bruno, a relative newcomer, is gaining traction fast by betting that API collections belong in Git, not in someone’s cloud account.
The three tools now target genuinely different workflows. Here’s how they compare on the things that matter: pricing, collaboration, offline use, and how well each fits into a modern development pipeline.
The Contenders at a Glance
| Feature | Postman | Insomnia | Bruno |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Yes, with limits | Yes, with limits | Free, open source |
| Paid plans | ~$14/user/mo (Basic) | ~$12/user/mo (Pro) | ~$6/user/mo (Team) |
| Git-native collections | Partial | No | Yes |
| Offline-first | Limited | Yes (Scratch Pad) | Yes |
| Open source | No | No (core closed) | Yes (MIT) |
| Scripting | JavaScript | JavaScript | JavaScript |
Prices are list rates as of early 2025 and change frequently, so verify current numbers before committing.
Postman: The Incumbent With the Deepest Feature Set
Postman remains the most complete platform in the category. Collections, environments, mock servers, automated test runs via the Collection Runner, and monitoring are all built in. The API documentation generator and public workspace features make it a reasonable choice for teams that need to share specs with external partners.
The 2023 announcement that Postman would discontinue its Scratch Pad—the offline, no-login mode—caused real backlash. The company walked it back, but the episode revealed a tension: Postman is fundamentally a cloud-collaboration product, and the free tier pushes users toward creating an account and syncing data.
Where Postman genuinely earns its price: CI/CD integration. Newman, the command-line collection runner, is mature, well-documented, and widely supported by CI providers. If your team runs hundreds of API tests in a pipeline, Postman’s ecosystem is hard to beat.
The downsides are familiar. The app is heavy—recent versions regularly exceed 500MB installed. The interface has accumulated features to the point where finding a basic setting can take longer than writing the request. And the free tier now caps collection runs and monitor usage, which stings for solo developers.
Insomnia: Focused, Fast, and Developer-Friendly
Insomnia, now owned by Kong, takes a leaner approach. The core workflow—compose a request, inspect the response, save it to a collection—is faster to learn than Postman’s. GraphQL support is arguably the best in the category, with schema introspection and autocomplete that actually works.
Insomnia’s design plugin system lets you generate code snippets in dozens of languages and themes the interface to taste. Environment variables and request chaining are handled cleanly, and the Scratch Pad (local, no-login storage) remains available, which matters for developers working on air-gapped machines or just tired of account prompts.
The trade-offs are real. Collaboration features are thinner than Postman’s—sharing collections typically means exporting files or using Insomnia’s sync, which requires an account. Automated testing exists but is less mature; there’s no direct equivalent to Newman’s ubiquity. And when Kong moved several previously free features behind the Pro tier in 2023, it reminded users that Insomnia is a commercial product with a closed-source core.
For individual developers and small teams who mostly need to send requests and read responses, Insomnia’s lower friction is a genuine advantage.
Bruno: Git-Native, Open Source, and Offline by Default
Bruno is the newest of the three and the most opinionated. Its core premise: API collections are plain text files (a custom .bru format) stored in a folder you own. You commit them to Git like any other code. There’s no cloud sync, no account required, and no proprietary database locking your work inside the app.
That single design decision solves several problems at once. Code review works on API collections—a teammate can comment on a changed request in a pull request. Version history comes free from Git. And because everything is local, Bruno works offline without a “scratch pad” mode, because that’s just how it works.
Bruno is MIT-licensed and free for individuals. The paid Team plan adds a collaboration layer, but the core tool doesn’t depend on it. The app is lightweight, launches quickly, and the UI is deliberately minimal.
The costs of being new: the ecosystem is smaller. Bruno supports JavaScript pre-request and test scripts, and it has a CLI (bru) for CI runs, but community plugins and integrations are far fewer than Postman’s. The .bru format is Bruno-specific, so migrating from Postman requires the built-in importer, which handles most but not all collection features. GraphQL support exists but isn’t as polished as Insomnia’s.
How to Choose
Pick Postman if your organization already standardizes on it, you need monitoring and mock servers alongside testing, or your CI pipeline depends on Newman. The collaboration and documentation features justify the cost for larger teams.
Pick Insomnia if you want a fast, clean request client with strong GraphQL support and don’t need heavy automation. It suits individual developers and small teams who find Postman bloated.
Pick Bruno if you believe API collections are code and should live in your repository. Teams that already review everything through pull requests will find Bruno’s model natural, and the open-source license removes procurement friction.
One practical note: migration is easier than it looks. Postman and Insomnia both export to open formats (Postman Collections JSON, Insomnia JSON), and Bruno imports both. Trying all three costs an afternoon, not a quarter.
The Takeaway
There’s no universal winner, and the framing of “best” obscures the real shift. Postman is the most capable platform and the safest choice for enterprises with existing workflows. Insomnia is the best pure request client for developers who value speed. Bruno represents a different philosophy—local-first, open source, Git-native—that resonates with teams treating API definitions as first-class code. The right pick depends less on feature checklists and more on where you want your collections to live: in a vendor’s cloud, in a local app, or in your repository alongside everything else.