Insomnia
Desktop API client for designing, sending and debugging HTTP, GraphQL and gRPC requests.
why this verdict
Cancel it — switch to Bruno
Bruno and Hoppscotch now cover the same core job on a free tier, so the $12/mo is optional.
- A named launch, not a vibe named, unlinked
- Agents issuing HTTP calls in the terminal and tool calls over MCP, no GUI required. Anthropic, November 25, 2024 — no announcement link recorded yet.
- How much of the job it covers all of it editorial call
- The whole core job — the thing the subscription was actually for.
- Is there a free way to do it? yes
- 3 of 3 listed replacements have a usable free tier: Bruno, Hoppscotch and HTTPie.
- What the call is worth $144/yr
- $12/mo at the entry paid tier — $144 a year per seat.
- Threatened by
- Anthropic
- Since
- November 25, 2024
- List price
- $12/mo
- Per year
- $144
The backstory
Insomnia was the fast, clean alternative to Postman for poking at APIs from the desktop. It lost a lot of goodwill when a release forced cloud accounts, and Bruno picked up users who wanted offline, Git-friendly collections. Meanwhile the everyday job of firing a request and reading the response moved to agents that run curl or call tools over MCP and explain the result. Between the trust damage and the workflow shift, the click-a-request app lost its place.
Escape hatches
switching could free up $144/yrOffline API client storing collections as files in your repo
usebruno.com open_in_newOpen-source browser client that can be self-hosted
hoppscotch.io open_in_newHuman-friendly CLI and desktop client for HTTP requests
httpie.io open_in_new3 of 3 replacements have a usable free tier.
