Apiboo vs Insomnia
Insomnia earned its following by being what Postman stopped being: a clean, fast API client. Since Kong acquired it, the direction has wobbled: Insomnia 8.0 (September 2023) made sign-in mandatory outside a new Scratch Pad, the backlash was loud, and 8.3 brought back fully local projects a few weeks later. A community fork, Insomnium, kept the pre-login version alive until it was archived in 2024. (Bruno is a separate, earlier project, not a descendant.)
Apiboo starts from the position Insomnia’s community was defending: local-first by default, no account needed for any local tool, a vault encrypted with a passphrase only you know, and cloud sync only when you turn it on. On top of that it adds what Insomnia never had: task boards, team chat, a database manager, a terminal with SSH and a documents editor, in one native app.
| Feature | Apiboo | Insomnia |
|---|---|---|
| Protocols | REST, GraphQL, WebSocket, SSE and gRPC | REST, GraphQL, WebSocket, SSE and gRPC |
| Where your data lives | Local-first desktop app; works offline — collections live on your disk | Per project: Local Vault, end-to-end encrypted Cloud Sync, or Git Sync; account-free use is the Scratch Pad |
| Secrets | Vault encrypted with a passphrase only you know (passwords, keys, DB and SSH logins) | Local Vault projects; end-to-end encryption for Cloud Sync |
| Scripting & runner | Pre-request & post-response scripts (boo.* plus Postman’s pm.*, Bruno’s bru.* and Hoppscotch’s pw.*), collection runner | Pre-request/after-response scripts; collection runner |
| Mock servers | Local mock server on every plan; cloud mocks on Pro | Cloud mocks (1k requests/month on the free plan) or self-hosted in Docker |
| Import / export | Imports Postman, Insomnia, Bruno (whole collections: .bru or YAML folders and Bruno exports), Hoppscotch, OpenAPI/Swagger, HAR and pasted cURL; exports to Postman, Insomnia, Bruno and OpenAPI | Postman, OpenAPI/Swagger, HAR, WSDL, cURL and its own format |
| Code generation | Code generation in 9 languages, cURL included | Code snippet generation |
| Task boards | Kanban task boards built in | Not built in |
| Team chat | Team chat (DMs, channels) where requests, collections and tasks are shareable cards | Not built in |
| Database manager | Built-in DB manager (PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite) | Not built in |
| API docs | Collection docs, OpenAPI export, and a documents editor with PDF/Markdown/HTML export | Design-first spec editing; no doc site generation from requests |
| Git sync | Git sync — connect a workspace to GitHub (free, runs on your machine) | Git sync for projects |
| Pricing | Free to start, no credit card; sync and team workspaces from Pro | Essentials $0 (Git Sync for up to 3 users); Pro $12/user/month; Enterprise $45/user/month |
| Hosting & compliance | Built in the EU; hosted on EU and US infrastructure; GDPR compliant | Owned by Kong Inc. (US); cloud operated by Kong |
Last updated 2026-09-25. Competitor details are based on publicly available information and can change — check the vendor for current specifics. Spotted something out of date? Write to hello@apiboo.com
Privacy you don’t have to configure
Insomnia today lets you choose local, cloud or Git storage per project — a good outcome, but one its users had to fight for, and one you have to remember to configure. Apiboo’s default is the private one: everything is local until you deliberately share it, secrets live in a vault encrypted with a passphrase only you know, and the app works offline and signed out. When you do sync, the application servers and primary database are in the EU (Nuremberg), with a US edge and standby replica for speed outside Europe.
The whole team workflow, not just requests
Insomnia is deliberately focused: design, debug and test APIs. The planning, the conversation and the data layer live elsewhere. Apiboo pulls them into the same workspace: Kanban boards beside your collections, channels and DMs where a request is a card your teammate can open, a query editor for PostgreSQL, MySQL and SQLite, a terminal with SSH, and a documents editor with PDF export. An AI assistant panel can build and run requests when you want it to.
For a small team, that is the difference between one tool and four. Team features start with Pro (one team of up to three people); the Team plan adds shared team workspaces without that limit.
Migrating from Insomnia takes minutes
Apiboo imports Insomnia v4 exports (JSON or YAML) directly. Each request group becomes a collection, group environments become collection variables, Bearer and Basic auth come across, and so do pre-request and after-response scripts (insomnia.* is an alias of the same script API). Anything that cannot be carried over is listed in the import preview before you commit.
Where Insomnia is still the better fit
Insomnia’s design-first workflow — editing an OpenAPI spec and testing against it in one place — is genuinely strong, and its Apache-2.0 source code matters if you have a policy of only running open-source tools. It also imports WSDL, and if your team is deep into Kong’s API gateway ecosystem, staying with Insomnia is a reasonable call.
If you want the API client plus the team tools around it, private by default and working offline, Apiboo is the stronger everyday home.
Frequently asked questions
Can I import Insomnia collections into Apiboo?
Yes. Apiboo imports Insomnia v4 exports (JSON or YAML), including request groups, environments, Bearer/Basic auth and scripts.
Does Apiboo require an account?
No. Every local tool works signed out and offline: collections, environments, the DB manager, the terminal, documents, boards and the vault. An account is only needed for sync, sharing, teams and chat.
Does Apiboo support gRPC and WebSocket like Insomnia?
Yes — REST, GraphQL, WebSocket, SSE and gRPC are all supported, with OAuth 2.0 (PKCE), AWS Signature v4 and mTLS.
