Insomnia

Insomnia is a desktop client for exercising HTTP APIs. A request is composed by choosing a method and URL and filling in headers, query parameters and a body; the response comes back with its status code, timing, headers and a searchable formatted body. Requests are saved into collections and folders, so a whole API is kept together in one place.

Environments hold variables such as base URLs, tokens and identifiers, and requests refer to them through template tags, so switching between a local server and a staging one means picking a different environment. Authentication helpers cover the usual schemes, among them basic auth, bearer tokens and OAuth flows. Beyond plain HTTP it also drives GraphQL queries, gRPC calls and WebSocket connections, and it can generate client code for a request in a range of languages.

Insomnia is an Electron application published by Kong for Linux, Windows and macOS. Some features are tied to an account and the vendor's hosted service; local-only use is possible but the arrangement has changed between releases, so check the current behaviour first.