Feature comparison

This page compares Nouto with five other API clients: Postman, Insomnia, Bruno, Yaak, and Thunder Client. Each cell describes what the tool offers on its free tier.

Last reviewed: October 5, 2026. Competitor information comes from each product’s website, documentation, pricing page, and public source code, and it changes often. If a cell is wrong, open an issue with the correction and a link to the source.

How to read the tables

The cells use these values:

Value	Meaning
Yes	Supported in the free tier
No	Not available
Partial	Limited support
Paid	Requires a paid plan
Via plugin	Available through a plugin, not built in
-	Not confirmed as of October 2026

Basics

Feature	Nouto	Postman	Insomnia	Bruno	Yaak	Thunder Client
Open source	Yes (MIT)	No	Yes (Apache 2.0)	Yes (MIT)	Yes (MIT)	No
Free tier	Yes (full)	Yes (limited)	Yes (limited)	Yes (most features)	Personal use only	Yes (very limited)
Account required	No	Partial	Partial	No	No	No
Telemetry	No	Yes	Yes (opt-out)	Yes (daily ping)	No	Yes (opt-out)
Local-first storage	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Desktop app	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
VS Code extension	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes
Web version	No	Yes	No	No	No	No
CLI	Yes (build from source)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Paid

Nouto has no paid tier, no account, and no telemetry. The Nouto CLI isn’t published to npm yet, so you build it from the repository.

Postman requires an account for most features and stores data in the Postman cloud by default. Bruno sends one anonymous ping a day with the operating system and app version. Yaak is free for personal use and requires a license for work use. Thunder Client’s free tier excludes WebSocket, SSE, gRPC, scripting, environments, the collection runner, and the CLI.

Protocols

Feature	Nouto	Postman	Insomnia	Bruno	Yaak	Thunder Client
HTTP/1.1	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
HTTP/2	Partial	Yes	Partial	No	Yes	-
GraphQL	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
GraphQL subscriptions	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	-	-
WebSocket	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Paid
Server-Sent Events	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Paid
gRPC (all four call types)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Paid
gRPC reflection	Yes	Yes	-	Yes	Yes	-

Thunder Client requires a paid plan for WebSocket, SSE, and gRPC.

In the Nouto VS Code extension and CLI, HTTPS requests negotiate HTTP/2 through ALPN when no proxy is set, and use HTTP/1.1 otherwise. The Nouto desktop app sends HTTP/1.1. Neither lets you force HTTP/2.

Authentication

Feature	Nouto	Postman	Insomnia	Bruno	Yaak	Thunder Client
Basic, Bearer, and API key	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
OAuth 2.0	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Paid
AWS Signature V4	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Digest	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	-	-
NTLM	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Auth inheritance	Yes	Yes	Partial	Yes	-	Yes

A Nouto request can inherit auth from its folder or collection. See Auth inheritance. Thunder Client’s free tier doesn’t include OAuth 2.0.

Variables and environments

Feature	Nouto	Postman	Insomnia	Bruno	Yaak	Thunder Client
Multiple environments	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Paid
Global variables	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Paid
Dynamic variables	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Collection variables	Yes	Yes	Partial	Yes	Yes	Paid
.env file linking	Yes	No	Via plugin	Yes	-	Paid
Secret variables	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Paid

Nouto’s dynamic variables include hashes, HMAC, encoding and decoding, regex extraction, Faker data, file reads, and values you type at send time. See Dynamic variables. Postman’s dynamic variables come from the Faker library and cover about 120 values, such as names, addresses, and dates.

Nouto stores secret variable values outside your collection and environment files. The desktop app uses the OS keychain: Windows Credential Manager, macOS Keychain, or the Linux Secret Service. The VS Code extension uses VS Code’s secret storage.

Thunder Client’s free tier allows no environments, so the environment-based features in this table need a paid plan.

Testing and automation

Feature	Nouto	Postman	Insomnia	Bruno	Yaak	Thunder Client
Pre-request scripts	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Paid
Post-response scripts	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Paid
No-code assertions	Yes	Partial	No	Yes	No	Yes
Collection runner	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Partial	Paid
Data-driven runs	Yes	Yes	-	Paid	No	Paid
Benchmarking	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No
Mock server	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	-
Monitors	No	Yes	No	No	No	-

Nouto includes scripting, no-code assertions, a collection runner that reads CSV and JSON data files, benchmarking, and a mock server. Bruno’s data-driven runs and run reports need a paid plan. Thunder Client’s scripting, collection runner, and data-driven runs need a paid plan. Yaak has no scripting or assertions.

Response

Feature	Nouto	Postman	Insomnia	Bruno	Yaak	Thunder Client
JSON tree viewer	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
JSONPath filter	Yes	Partial	Partial	-	Via plugin	Partial
Image preview	Yes	Yes	Via plugin	Yes	Yes	-
PDF preview	No	No	No	No	Yes	No
Timing breakdown	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Partial
Response diff	Yes	Partial	No	-	Yes	-
Code generation	Yes (13 targets)	Yes (many)	Yes (many)	Yes (35+)	Yes (many)	Yes (10+)

Nouto previews image responses and offers PDF responses as a file to open or save. Its response diff compares a response with the previous response to the same request. The JSONPath filter is part of the response panel, so filtering a response doesn’t need a script or plugin.

Organization

Feature	Nouto	Postman	Insomnia	Bruno	Yaak	Thunder Client
Nested folders	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Drag and drop	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Trash and recovery	Yes	Yes	-	No	-	-
Request history	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Import sources	8	9+	5	5	4	Paid (5)
Export formats	4	1	1	2	3	Paid

Nouto imports from Postman, Insomnia, Bruno, Hoppscotch, Thunder Client, OpenAPI, cURL, and HAR. It exports collections as Nouto JSON, Postman, HAR, and OpenAPI, and exports collection runner results as JSON, CSV, JUnit XML, and HTML.

Editor and workflow

Feature	Nouto	Postman	Insomnia	Bruno	Yaak	Thunder Client
OpenAPI editor	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
OpenAPI linting	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Command palette	Yes	Yes	Yes	-	-	Yes
Undo and redo	Yes	Yes	Yes	-	-	-
Custom shortcuts	Yes	Yes	-	Yes	-	Partial
Custom themes	Yes (26 built in)	Partial	Via plugins	Yes	Via plugins	Yes

The Nouto desktop app has 26 built-in themes, a browser for 65 bundled VS Code themes, a panel for customizing the current theme, and import for VS Code theme files. The Nouto VS Code extension uses your editor’s theme.

Extensibility

Feature	Nouto	Postman	Insomnia	Bruno	Yaak	Thunder Client
Plugin system	No	No	Yes	Partial	Yes	No
Git UI	No	Yes	Yes	Partial	Yes	Paid
AI features	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Partial
MCP support	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Paid

Nouto has no plugin system, built-in Git UI, AI features, or MCP support. In workspace storage, Nouto saves each request as its own JSON file under .nouto/, so you can version collections with your usual Git tools. See Storage modes.

Bruno’s free tier can clone a repository, pull, and view diffs from its Git UI. Committing and pushing from the Git UI need a paid plan.