Hoppscotch: Open source alternative to Postman / Insomnia

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Ecosystem churn: Postman → Insomnia → Bruno → …

  • Many commenters describe a recurring cycle: Postman became cloud‑first and bloated; Insomnia followed with accounts/telemetry; Bruno then positioned itself as the “fix,” and is now seen as heading down a similar path.
  • Some say “the industry has moved to Bruno,” but others push back, having never heard of it or finding it too buggy/unpolished in team use.
  • Yaak (by Insomnia’s creator) is repeatedly mentioned as a new offline‑first alternative.

Monetization, open core, and trust

  • Bruno and Hoppscotch are perceived as open‑core tools with expensive enterprise tiers; some believe they intentionally limit community features to protect paid offerings.
  • Bruno’s shift from “all free” to paid feature tiers upsets users who feel they were sold an anti‑enshittification story only to see the same pattern emerge. Others defend it as necessary to sustain development, emphasizing that the core remains open source and terminal/IDE workflows can replace paid GUI features.
  • A Hoppscotch PR adding OIDC was explicitly declined because that feature was reserved for the enterprise plan, viewed by some as “shady” and anti‑user.
  • One maintainer promises never to monetize their own client, with replies noting that only strong copyleft, no CLA, and broad contributors make such promises credible.

CLI vs GUI clients

  • Many prefer curl/Hurl/HTTPie CLI, or scripting via Python/Jupyter, citing simplicity, maturity, automation, and avoidance of heavy GUI dependencies.
  • Others argue GUI tools are invaluable for teams, complex payloads, multiple environments, auth flows, and easy onboarding.
  • File‑based approaches (Bruno collections, VS Code REST Client, JetBrains HTTP client, httpyac, Hurl) are praised for Git integration, transparency, and freedom from SaaS lock‑in.

Performance, Electron, and native/TUI options

  • Electron‑based clients (especially Postman) are criticized as bloated and sluggish; users with limited RAM feel real pain.
  • Some want lighter GUIs using native or slimmer toolkits (iced, slint, Qt/QML, Tauri, Wails) or TUI tools (Posting, Slumber).
  • There’s debate over whether demand and willingness to pay are sufficient to economically sustain a high‑quality, fully native cross‑platform client.