Bruno is an open-source API client built as a direct challenger to cloud-dependent tools like Postman and Insomnia. Created by Anoop M D and named after his golden retriever, Bruno takes a fundamentally different architectural stance: every collection is stored as a plain-text .bru file directly on your filesystem, co-locatable with your codebase. There is no cloud sync, no login, no account — and the maintainers have explicitly stated there never will be. The GitHub repository crossed 44,000 stars in May 2026, with adoption roughly tripling after Postman's March 2026 free-tier cut to a single user.
Where Postman and Apidog are moving toward AI-powered platforms with cloud-centric collaboration, Bruno is moving in the opposite direction — back to simplicity, developer ownership, and Git as the only collaboration primitive you need. It is the strongest choice for developers who want their API work treated like code: branchable, diffable, reviewable, and version-controlled alongside the application it tests.
Key Features
Git-Native Storage (Bru Format) — collections are stored as human-readable
.bruplain-text files in folders on your filesystem. Diffs are reviewable in any code review tool. No separate permissions system — your existing Git access controls cascade automatically.Fully Offline, No Account Required — Bruno never syncs data to the cloud. There is no login, no account, and no visibility into what you input. Your data stays on your machine and can only be shared via Git or explicit file transfer.
Multi-Protocol Support — supports REST, GraphQL, gRPC, and WebSockets out of the box, all available on the free plan with no protocol support locked behind a paywall.
CLI & CI/CD Integration — Bruno CLI has official Docker images for running collections in pipelines without installing Node.js, with support for GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, and Jenkins.
Scripting & Environments — pre-request and post-response scripts with full environment variable support; npm packages can be loaded directly into a collection. Secrets are masked in CLI reports.
OpenAPI & Postman Import — import from OpenAPI specs (via URL or file) and from Postman collections, maintaining collection structure and translating scripts where possible.
Fully Open Source — the editor core is MIT-licensed and available on GitHub. Paid Pro ($6/user/month) and Ultimate ($11/user/month) plans add deeper Git tooling, enterprise integrations, and priority support, but all core API client functionality is free forever.
Why Choose Bruno?
Bruno is the strongest choice for developers and teams who treat API collections as code — people who want their requests, tests, and environments versioned in the same repo, reviewed in the same pull requests, and owned fully on their own infrastructure. It is the only major API client that is offline-only by design, with no cloud sync now or ever. The free tier covers virtually all everyday API testing needs; paid plans are for teams that need enterprise support, governance, or deeper automation hooks.
Platform & Compatibility
Architecture
Minimum macOS
macOS Big Sur 11Public Opinion
Curated highlights from Reddit and other communities, not user-submitted reviews.
“A developer writing on Medium described switching from Postman to Bruno after Postman dropped its offline Scratch Pad mode in 2023, praising Bruno's offline-first, Git-friendly approach as ideal for projects with strict security requirements where sending API data to third-party servers is unacceptable.”
Medium: Why I Switched to Bruno for API Testing (2025)
“A Product Hunt reviewer called Bruno a great replacement for Insomnia and Postman once both moved to subscription and account-required models — praising the open-source approach, offline use, and storing collections as readable text files in Git as features that make secret management and versioning feel natural.”
Product Hunt: Bruno reviews (2025)
“A senior quality engineer at a digital product studio wrote that co-locating Bruno collections alongside application code in Git was a revelation — noting that when they delivered a client project, the client received not just an integration but living documentation their technical team could immediately extend and maintain.”
In The Pocket: Bruno – The Lean, Git-Friendly API Client (2025)
“A comparison piece from May 2026 noted that Bruno's GitHub repository crossed 44,000 stars and that adoption inside engineering teams — measured indirectly through .bru files appearing in public repositories — had roughly tripled since Postman's March 2026 pricing change, confirming Bruno as the primary beneficiary of the migration.”
Crosscheck: Postman vs Bruno vs Insomnia (2026)
“Product Hunt reviewers consistently noted that Bruno's UI is less advanced than competitors like Postman or Insomnia — covering the essentials well but lacking the polish of more feature-heavy tools, which can be a friction point for teams coming from richer environments.”
“A 2026 comparison noted that Bruno's protocol coverage, while sufficient for most teams, falls short of Postman's (no MQTT, no built-in MCP client) and Insomnia's (no SSE or Socket.IO), and that GraphQL-heavy teams relying on schema introspection and query autocompletion tend to prefer Insomnia for that specific workflow.”
“The offline-only, no-cloud-sync stance that is Bruno's biggest selling point is also its biggest limitation for teams that need cross-device access or non-Git-based collaboration — there is no web app, no shared workspace, and no way to access collections without a Git repository or manual file transfer.”
Bruno Official Site
Community
