Postman vs Insomnia vs Bruno: Which API Client Should You Use in 2025?
Three tools dominate the conversation among developers who test APIs every day: Postman, Insomnia, and Bruno. All three send HTTP requests, manage collections, and handle environments. But they’ve drifted apart in ways that matter—pricing models, data storage, collaboration features, and how much they respect your local machine.
If you’re choosing one in 2025, the decision isn’t about which tool is “best.” It’s about which trade-offs fit your workflow. Here’s how they compare.
The Quick Version
- Postman — The most feature-complete option, with the strongest team collaboration and API documentation tools. Also the heaviest, and its free tier has tightened over time.
- Insomnia — A cleaner, faster client that sits between Postman and Bruno in capability. Now owned by Kong, which has shifted its pricing and packaging.
- Bruno — An open-source, offline-first client that stores collections as plain files on your disk. Minimal cloud dependency, growing fast.
Postman: The Incumbent With the Widest Feature Set
Postman started as a Chrome extension in 2012 and grew into a full API platform. Today it covers request testing, automated test suites, mock servers, API documentation, and monitoring. If your team needs to publish a public API reference or run scheduled health checks, Postman does that without extra tooling.
The collaboration story is its strongest card. Shared workspaces, role-based permissions, and version history make it easy for a team of ten to work on the same collection without stepping on each other. For enterprise environments with compliance requirements, that structure matters.
The trade-offs:
- Resource usage. Postman is an Electron app and it feels like one. On older hardware, startup and scrolling can lag.
- Cloud-first storage. Collections live in Postman’s cloud by default. Local-only workflows exist but aren’t the primary design.
- Free tier limits. The free plan caps collection runs and collaboration features. Heavier usage pushes teams toward paid plans, and pricing scales per user.
- Account requirement. You can use Postman without signing in, but much of its value assumes you do.
Postman is a reasonable default if you work on a team, need documentation or monitoring, and don’t mind the cloud dependency.
Insomnia: Polished, but Watch the Pricing
Insomnia earned fans for a simple reason: it felt faster and less cluttered than Postman while still supporting environments, GraphQL, gRPC, and WebSockets. The interface is genuinely pleasant, and for solo developers or small teams, it often hits the sweet spot.
Kong acquired Insomnia in 2019, and that changed the trajectory. In 2023, Kong introduced a paid-only tier for features like Git sync and added account requirements for some functionality—a move that frustrated parts of the user base and, by several accounts, contributed to interest in alternatives.
What you get in 2025:
- Solid support for REST, GraphQL, gRPC, and WebSockets
- A design that many developers still prefer over Postman’s
- A free tier that covers individual use, with paid plans for team features
- Cloud sync tied to a Kong account
If you already use Kong’s API gateway products, Insomnia integrates naturally into that stack. If you want full control over where your data lives, it’s less appealing than it used to be.
Bruno: Offline-First and Git-Native
Bruno is the newest of the three and the one generating the most discussion. Its core idea is simple: collections are stored as plain-text .bru files in a folder on your filesystem. You version them with Git like any other code. No account, no cloud sync required, no proprietary format.
That approach solves a real problem. When collections live in a cloud service, they’re awkward to review in pull requests, hard to diff, and dependent on a vendor staying in business. Bruno treats API collections as source code, which fits teams that already review everything through Git.
Other characteristics:
- Open source under the MIT license, with an active community
- Lightweight compared to Postman, since it isn’t shipping a full platform
- Local-first, so secrets and internal endpoints stay on your machine
- Scripting support for pre-request and post-response logic
The trade-offs are real too. Bruno’s ecosystem is younger, so you won’t find the same depth of integrations, mock servers, or hosted documentation. Collaboration happens through Git rather than a built-in workspace. If your team isn’t comfortable with Git workflows, that’s friction.
For individual developers, small teams, and anyone working with sensitive internal APIs, Bruno’s model is compelling.
Head-to-Head Comparison
| Postman | Insomnia | Bruno | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Storage | Cloud-first | Cloud with local option | Local files only |
| Open source | No | Partially | Yes (MIT) |
| Git-friendly | Limited | Paid tier | Native |
| Account required | Effectively yes | For sync features | No |
| Free tier | Capped | Usable | Fully free |
| Collaboration | Strongest | Moderate | Via Git |
| Extras | Docs, mocks, monitoring | GraphQL/gRPC focus | Core client only |
| Resource use | Heavy | Moderate | Light |
How to Choose
Pick Postman if you need hosted API documentation, scheduled monitoring, or a large team collaborating in a shared workspace. The feature depth justifies the weight and the cost for many organizations.
Pick Insomnia if you want a polished client with broad protocol support and you’re comfortable with Kong’s ecosystem and pricing. It’s a good middle ground, though the pricing changes are worth reviewing before you commit a team to it.
Pick Bruno if you want your API collections versioned in Git, you work with sensitive endpoints, or you simply don’t want another account and subscription. It’s the strongest choice for developers who treat their tooling the way they treat their code.
Many developers use more than one. Postman for team-shared documentation, Bruno for day-to-day local work, for example. There’s no rule against it.
The Bottom Line
The API client market split along a clear line in 2025: platforms versus tools. Postman and Insomnia are platforms—cloud-connected, feature-rich, and priced accordingly. Bruno is a tool—local, open, and unopinionated about where your data goes.
If your priority is collaboration and integrated API lifecycle features, Postman remains the safe pick. If you want a lighter client and don’t mind the vendor relationship, Insomnia works well. If you want ownership of your collections and a Git-native workflow, Bruno is worth the switch.
Try all three on the same project for a week. The right answer usually becomes obvious fast.