ApiArk vs Insomnia
Local-first by design, not by afterthought.
What happened to Insomnia
Insomnia was one of the best API clients. Then Kong acquired it, and trust was broken.
Forced cloud sync
Kong (Insomnia's parent company) pushed an update that forced cloud sync without user consent. Local data was uploaded to Kong's servers. Users who relied on Insomnia for sensitive API work found their secrets on someone else's infrastructure.
Data loss incident
The forced migration caused data loss for many users. Local collections disappeared. The community outcry was severe -- Insomnia dropped from 4.5 to 2.1 stars on some platforms overnight.
Creator leaves
Gregory Schier, Insomnia's original creator, left Kong and built Yaak -- a new API client from scratch. When the creator walks away, that tells you everything about the direction of the product.
Trust is hard to rebuild
Insomnia has since made local storage optional again, but the damage is done. Once a tool uploads your secrets without permission, the relationship with security-conscious developers is broken.
Trust comparison
Feature comparison
| Feature | ApiArk | Insomnia |
|---|---|---|
| Framework | Tauri v2 (Rust) | Electron |
| RAM Usage | ~50MB | 200-400MB |
| Account Required | ||
| Data Storage | Local filesystem (YAML) | Cloud (Kong) |
| Open Source | MIT | MIT |
| REST | ||
| GraphQL | ||
| gRPC | ||
| WebSocket | ||
| SSE | ||
| MQTT | ||
| Mock Servers | Local (unlimited) | |
| Monitoring | ||
| Collection Runner | ||
| CLI Tool | apiark | inso |
| Plugin System | JS + WASM | npm plugins |
| Git-Friendly | ||
| API Docs Generation | ||
| Proxy Capture | ||
| Code Generation | ||
| Response Diff |
Trust is earned, not promised.
ApiArk is local-first by architecture, not by policy. There is no cloud to sync to. Your data physically cannot leave your machine.