Postman Alternative
The power of Postman.
The privacy of your own machine.
Rest Hippo is a free, open-source REST API client that runs entirely on your computer — no account, no cloud sync, no telemetry. You get a deep, built-in feature set without signing in, getting tracked, or hitting a paywall.
macOS · Windows · Linux · No account · No telemetry · Apache 2.0
Side by side
How Rest Hippo compares
The properties that matter when your API tool sees every token, header, and payload you send. Defaults shown for each tool's free tier.
| Rest Hippo | Postman | Insomnia | Bruno | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free forever | Free tier + paid | Free tier + paid | Free (+ paid extras) |
| Open source | ✓Apache 2.0 | ✕Proprietary | ✓Apache 2.0 | ✓MIT |
| No account required | ✓Just install & run | ✕Sign-in required | ◐Local mode only | ✓ |
| Works 100% offline | ✓ | ◐Cloud-oriented | ◐ | ✓ |
| No telemetry / tracking | ✓Never phones home | ✕ | ◐Opt-out | ✓ |
| Local, file-based storage | ✓Your data stays yours | ✕Cloud workspace | ◐ | ✓ |
| Full auth suite built in OAuth 2.0/OIDC, SigV4, NTLM, Digest, mTLS | ✓No plugins | ✓ | ✓ | ◐ |
| GraphQL · WebSockets · SSE | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ◐ |
| Import from Postman / Insomnia + OpenAPI, HAR, cURL | ✓One-click migration | ◐ | ✓ | ✓ |
Why switch
Built for developers, not dashboards
Your requests stay private
Every request runs natively on your machine and is stored in local files. No cloud workspace means your tokens, internal URLs, and payloads never leave your laptop.
No sign-in wall
Download, open, send a request. There's no mandatory account, no "create a team" prompt, and no feature held hostage behind a login or a subscription.
Depth without plugins
OAuth 2.0 & OIDC (every grant type), AWS SigV4, NTLM, Digest, mTLS, GraphQL, WebSockets, SSE, captures, tests, and pre/post scripts — all in the box, all free.
Already using Postman or Insomnia? Switch in minutes.
Rest Hippo imports your existing collections directly — Postman,
Insomnia, OpenAPI 3 / Swagger 2,
HAR, and cURL. Bring your requests, environments,
and variables across, then export back out anytime (redaction-aware) so you're never
locked in. Need a single request? Paste a curl command and Rest Hippo
builds it for you.
Try the API client that respects you
Free, open source, and fully offline. No account, no telemetry — just install it and send a request.
macOS 12+ · Windows 10/11 · Linux (64-bit)
Comparison reflects each tool's default, free-tier configuration as of June 2026, to the best of our knowledge. Postman, Insomnia, and Bruno are excellent tools and their capabilities change over time — check each project for the latest. Postman™ is a trademark of Postman, Inc.; Insomnia is a product of Kong Inc.; Bruno is an independent open-source project. Rest Hippo is not affiliated with any of them. Spot something out of date? Let us know on GitHub.