Best Postman Alternatives in 2026: Bruno, Hoppscotch, Insomnia, Yaak and More

If you want a Postman alternative that works offline, keeps collections in git and never asks you to log in, start with Bruno: it is MIT licensed, stores requests as plain-text files in a folder you choose, and has no cloud sync at all. Yaak is the closest match if you want a polished local-first app and don't mind a paid licence for work. Insomnia and Hoppscotch suit teams that still want an optional cloud.

Below are five alternatives, plus a note on HTTPie. Every price, limit and licence was checked against each vendor's own page or GitHub repository on 11 November 2026.

Why people leave Postman

Postman's Free plan is for one user. Team collaboration is a Team plan feature, at $19 per user per month billed annually; Solo is $9 per month. The free plan also caps API monitoring at 1,000 requests and Postman AI at 50 credits a month.

You can send requests without an account: signed out, the desktop app falls back to a lightweight API Client whose work "is stored locally and isn't synced online". Collections, environments and variables, though, are workspace features, so you have to sign in to use them.

Postman does now have Native Git, which writes collections, environments and specs into a postman/ folder in your repo. Its docs don't say which plans include it, and the CLI workflow starts with postman login. So the three things people usually want, offline, files in git and no forced account, are not all available together.

Side by side

Tool	License	Offline / no login	Git-friendly storage	Free tier
Bruno	MIT	Offline-only, no cloud	Plain-text files in a folder	Open Source plan, $0
Hoppscotch	MIT	Desktop standalone mode keeps data locally	Import/export only	Cloud Free, or self-host CE
Insomnia	Apache-2.0	Scratch Pad needs no account	Git Sync, free up to 3 users	Essentials, $0
Yaak	MIT (source)	Local-first, no data sync	Mirror workspace to a folder	Free for personal use
API Dash	Apache-2.0	Data persisted on disk	HAR export	Free, open source

"Git-friendly" here means requests end up as files you can diff and commit, not a cloud sync that happens to talk to GitHub.

1. Bruno: files in a folder, nothing in the cloud

Best for: developers who want collections reviewed in pull requests like any other code.

Bruno's README is blunt about its scope: it is "offline-only" and there are "no plans to add cloud-sync to Bruno, ever". Each collection is a folder on disk; the docs recommend the YAML format, and the older .bru plain-text format is still supported. You share a collection by committing the folder, and use git or any version control you like.

The app is MIT licensed. Paid plans add deeper git workflows, automation and admin tools on top: Pro is $6 and Ultimate $11 per user per month, billed annually, per the pricing page. It supports HTTP, REST, GraphQL and gRPC, has a CLI for CI runs, and installs with brew install bruno on a Mac or winget install Bruno.Bruno on Windows.

2. Hoppscotch: in the browser, on the desktop or self-hosted

Best for: quick requests from a browser tab, or a team that wants to host its own instance.

Hoppscotch started as a web app and is MIT licensed. It runs at hoppscotch.io, installs as a PWA with offline support, and has Tauri-based desktop apps for macOS, Windows and Linux. In standalone mode, the desktop app keeps collections, environments, history and credentials in local storage.

The hosted Free plan is "$0 forever" and covers a personal workspace, collections, environments, scripts, tests and a collection runner; Business is $6 per user per month. The self-hosted Community Edition is free and MIT licensed, including team workspaces with roles; SSO and audit logs are in the Enterprise Edition at $19 per user per month.

What it lacks next to Bruno is file-based storage. Collections import and export in Hoppscotch, OpenAPI and Postman formats, but the docs describe no git-backed storage mode.

3. Insomnia: choose where each project lives

Best for: teams that want cloud collaboration for some projects and strictly local or git storage for others.

Insomnia, maintained by Kong and licensed Apache-2.0, lets you pick a storage backend per project: Local Vault (fully local), Git Sync (any third-party git repository, without going through the cloud) or Cloud Sync, optionally end-to-end encrypted.

The account question is the catch. Without an account you get the local-only Scratch Pad; the README says most other capabilities need a free account, even if the project itself is stored 100% locally. The Essentials plan is $0 with unlimited local and cloud projects, unlimited collection runs, Git Sync for up to 3 users and 1,000 mock-server requests a month. Pro is $12 per user per month.

4. Yaak: a fast local-first app with a paid licence for work

Best for: individuals who want a native-feeling client and are fine paying if they use it at work.

Yaak is built with Tauri, Rust and React and handles REST, GraphQL, gRPC, WebSocket and Server-Sent Events. Its pricing page calls it a "local-first desktop app" that does not store or sync your data. To put requests in git, you mirror a workspace to a folder on disk; the README lists "versioning in Git or syncing with Dropbox". It imports Postman, Insomnia, OpenAPI and curl.

Licensing is split. The source code is MIT and can be built and run for free, for personal and commercial use. The prebuilt binaries are free for personal use, and "a license is only required when using Yaak at work", per the pricing page: $79 a year or $349 lifetime for an individual, $149 per user per year for a business. A 30-day commercial trial starts at first launch with no signup. Install with brew install --cask yaak or winget install yaak (install docs).

5. API Dash: open source, cross-platform, including iOS

Best for: developers who also work on mobile or Flutter, or who need to preview media responses.

API Dash is an Apache-2.0 client written in Dart. It covers HTTP, GraphQL, SSE, WebSocket, MQTT and gRPC, and runs on macOS, Windows, Linux and iOS (via the App Store). According to its README, data is persisted locally on disk and can be exported as a HAR file. It can preview image, PDF and audio responses, and generate integration code for Dart, JavaScript, Python, Kotlin and other languages.

It is the smallest project here, with about 3,000 GitHub stars against Bruno's 48,000, and it has no paid tier or file-per-request storage. The README describes no sign-in.

Also worth a look: HTTPie Desktop

The HTTPie Desktop page says you can "use the app offline and without an account". It is labelled public beta, and the page lists no licence or pricing, so it is not in the table.

How to choose

• You want requests reviewed in pull requests and no cloud at all: Bruno.
• You want a browser tab, or a team instance on your own servers: Hoppscotch.
• Your team needs cloud sharing for some projects and git for others: Insomnia, with a free account.
• You work solo, value speed and will pay for a work licence: Yaak.
• You need an open-source client on iOS, or Dart code generation: API Dash.
• You are staying on Postman but want files in git: check whether Native Git is on your plan.

FAQ

Is there a Postman alternative that works without an account?

Yes. Bruno and API Dash describe no sign-in at all, Yaak's trial needs no signup, Insomnia's Scratch Pad works without an account, and Hoppscotch's desktop app has a standalone mode. Postman itself offers a signed-out lightweight client, but without collections or environments.

Which Postman alternative stores collections in git?

Bruno stores each collection as a folder of plain-text files, so git works on it directly. Yaak can mirror a workspace to a folder, and Insomnia's Git Sync pushes projects to any git repository. Postman's Native Git also writes files into a repo.

Is Bruno really free?

The app is MIT licensed and the Open Source plan is $0. Paid plans, from $6 per user per month billed annually, add deeper git integration, automation and team admin features.

Can I import my Postman collections?

Bruno imports Postman collections and environments, Hoppscotch imports Postman collections, and Yaak imports from Postman, Insomnia, OpenAPI and curl. Export from Postman first; its own docs explain how.

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If your API work ends in browser tests, see Playwright vs Cypress vs Selenium. For small tools that also skip the signup, read free developer tools with no sign-up, and browse the Developer Tools directory for more.