Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

API Platform VS Insomnia REST

Compare API Platform VS Insomnia REST and see what are their differences

API Platform logo API Platform

REST and GraphQL framework to build modern API-driven projects

Insomnia REST logo Insomnia REST

Design, debug, test, and mock APIs locally, on Git, or cloud. Build better APIs collaboratively for the most popular protocols with a dev‑friendly UI, built-in automation, and an extensible plugin ecosystem.
  • API Platform Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-15
  • Insomnia REST Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-05

API Platform features and specs

  • Rich Feature Set
    API Platform offers a comprehensive set of tools and features for building APIs, including schema generation, documentation, testing, and more, which can accelerate the development process.
  • GraphQL Support
    It provides built-in support for GraphQL, allowing developers to create flexible and efficient queries, which can improve client performance and reduce over-fetching of data.
  • Automatic CRUD Operations
    API Platform simplifies backend development by automatically generating CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations from the model schema, reducing boilerplate code.
  • Integration with Symfony
    Built on top of Symfony, API Platform leverages Symfony's robustness, community support, and vast amount of plugins and bundles, which can enhance the API’s flexibility and extensibility.
  • API-First Design
    It supports designing APIs first with a specification-based approach, encouraging developers to define data models and interfaces before implementation, leading to clearer and more maintainable code.

Possible disadvantages of API Platform

  • Complexity for Simple APIs
    For simple or small-scale APIs, API Platform's extensive features can introduce unnecessary complexity, making it less suitable for straightforward projects where a simpler solution would suffice.
  • Learning Curve
    The comprehensive feature set can lead to a steeper learning curve for newcomers, especially those unfamiliar with Symfony or the API Platform’s methodologies.
  • Symfony Dependency
    Since API Platform is deeply integrated with Symfony, it might not be the ideal choice for projects using different frameworks, as it would require adopting Symfony’s ecosystem.
  • Limited Community Compared to Larger Frameworks
    While it has a supportive community, API Platform is more niche compared to larger frameworks like Express or Django, which might result in fewer community resources or third-party tutorials.
  • Overhead on Performance
    The abstraction and features provided by API Platform may introduce some overhead, potentially impacting performance compared to more lightweight solutions optimized for specific use cases.

Insomnia REST features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    Insomnia REST features a clean and intuitive user interface that makes it easy to create, send, and manage API requests without a steep learning curve.
  • Support for Multiple Protocols
    In addition to REST, Insomnia supports GraphQL and gRPC, making it versatile for developers working with different API protocols.
  • Environment Management
    Insomnia allows you to create and manage multiple environments, making it easier to switch between staging, development, and production settings.
  • Custom Plugins and Themes
    Insomnia supports custom plugins and themes, allowing users to extend its functionality and personalize the interface to suit their workflow.
  • Collaboration Features
    With Insomnia Teams, users can collaborate and share API requests, environments, and other resources, enhancing team productivity.
  • Cross-Platform Availability
    Insomnia is available on multiple platforms, including Windows, macOS, and Linux, providing flexibility for users on different operating systems.

Possible disadvantages of Insomnia REST

  • Resource Heavy
    Some users have reported that Insomnia can be resource-intensive, leading to potential performance issues on lower-end machines.
  • Limited Free Features
    While Insomnia offers a free tier, some of the more advanced features, such as team collaboration and sync capabilities, require a paid subscription.
  • Steeper Learning Curve for Advanced Features
    Although the basic functionalities are user-friendly, mastering the more advanced features might require a steeper learning curve.
  • Dependency on Electron
    Since Insomnia is built on Electron, it might consume more memory and disk space compared to native applications.
  • Complex Plugin System
    While the plugin system is powerful, it can be complex and challenging for users who are not familiar with JavaScript and Node.js.

API Platform videos

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Insomnia REST videos

3 Reasons to use Insomnia REST Client in your Exploratory API Testing

More videos:

  • Tutorial - Insomnia REST Client Tutorial

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to API Platform and Insomnia REST)
Web Frameworks
100 100%
0% 0
API Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Developer Tools
7 7%
93% 93
Python Web Framework
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare API Platform and Insomnia REST

API Platform Reviews

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Insomnia REST Reviews

Top 20 Open Source & Cloud Free Postman Alternatives (2024 Updated)
Product Introduction: Insomnia is a powerful open-source API client designed for simplicity and efficiency and works great as a postman alternative. It supports REST, GraphQL, and gRPC, making it versatile for various API types.
Source: medium.com
Best Postman Alternatives To Consider in 2025
It is a free, open-source platform that boasts a user-friendly interface and robust features like environment and collection management, code snippets, and test automation. Compared to Postman, Insomnia offers a lighter footprint and a more customizable workspace.
Postman Alternatives for API Testing and Monitoring
Insomnia is a user-friendly tool for API development and testing. Insomnia allows creating and sending HTTP and REST requests, like GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, and more. Users can view API responses, including status codes, headers, and body. This enables understanding how the application handles different response scenarios, for efficient debugging.
Top 10 HTTP Client and Web Debugging Proxy Tools (2023)
Insomnia REST is the best alternative for Postman. It has more than 350 open-source plugins, plus GraphQL built-in with multiple protocol support. Since GraphQL is an added value, you can fully automate the entire lifecycle of APIs, build and debug them efficiently and with ease.
15 Best Postman Alternatives for Automated API Testing [2022 Updated]
Insomnia by Kong enables you to deliver high-quality APIs through collaboration. This postman alternative also includes testing suites, which allow you to create functional tests and centralize APIs. With this platform’s streamlined API client, sending GraphQL, REST, and SOAP requests are simple. Defining variables such as authentication credentials allows you to manage...
Source: testsigma.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Insomnia REST should be more popular than API Platform. It has been mentiond 129 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

API Platform mentions (39)

  • Symfony 7 vs. .NET Core 8 - Controllers
    Another difference is that in .NET Core, we can integrate with OpenAPI out of the box (it is part of the framework), while in Symfony, an API-based application with OpenAPI features is only available using a third-party tool—the API Platform. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • Consistent validation with API Platform 3
    API Platform is a great tool for rapid API development, but it has a lot of not-so-well-documented features which can sometimes lead to confusion. Playing around with a new project of mine I've stumbled into one: tests were failing for my validation assertions of endpoints' responses! - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • Lucky like a 7 — Seven SymfonyCasts Courses to Master Symfony 7
    Technically API Platform is not part of Symfony. Although, they are both French. 😉. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Shot in the dark
    Probably API-platform. The website is down at the moment, but: https://github.com/api-platform/api-platform It's Symfony based (and plays nice in that ecosystem), also allows you to describe entities via Schema org vocab, has a client generator, and comes with docker-compose and helm charts. I've used it extensively to build various headless services. It's really easy to expose annotated Doctrine entities. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • API Platform up and running in 5 minutes 🚀
    API Platform is a framework for API-first projects, built on top of Symfony components. Let's see how to create a minimal and lightweight starter project in just 5 minutes! - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
View more

Insomnia REST mentions (129)

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What are some alternatives?

When comparing API Platform and Insomnia REST, you can also consider the following products

Adonis JS - AdonisJs is a Node.js web framework with breath of fresh air and drizzle of elegant syntax on top of it

Postman - The Collaboration Platform for API Development

ASP.NET - ASP.NET is a free web framework for building great Web sites and Web applications using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

Hoppscotch - Open source API development ecosystem

Play Framework - An open source web framework which follows the model-view-controller architecture. It is light-weight, web-friendly, and stateless. It provides minimal overhead for highly-scalable applications.

RapidAPI for Mac - Paw is a REST client for Mac.