ShellYard vs Insomnia

Insomnia worked beautifully —
until Cloud became the default.

Insomnia's UI is clean. Insomnia's recent direction — mandatory Cloud login, telemetry-by-default, account-gated features — is less clean. ShellYard is a native desktop with the same kinds of clean flows, no account required on Free, and an integrated SSH client, database inspector, 40+ network tools, and AI assistant alongside the API client.

Download free for macOS, Windows, Linux

Free forever · No account on Free · No telemetry-by-default

Insomnia · Launch

Required to access most features

Local-only mode is available but requires opting out post-sign-in.

Door before the desk.

ShellYard · Launch

Just open. No account. Free

GET

https://api.internal/v1/health

200 OK 62 ms · 96 B application/json

{
  "status": "ok",
  "auth_required": false
}

Desk before the door.

Same kind of clean UI. Different stance on what you have to log in to.

Pick the one that matches your trust line

Two clean UIs, two different defaults.

Stay on Insomnia if

You're deep in Kong's API gateway ecosystem.
Insomnia's plugin ecosystem is load-bearing for your workflow.
You've already accepted the Cloud account direction.
Mock servers or inso CLI in CI are non-negotiable.

Switch to ShellYard if

You want no-account, local-first on Free.
You don't trust the post-Kong roadmap and want fewer Cloud surfaces.
You want SSH-tunnel routing, a DB inspector, and network tools in the same app.
You want an AI assistant that doesn't go through us.

Feature-by-feature

The API-client surface you expect, plus the workspace layer Insomnia doesn't ship — and the places Insomnia still does it better.

ShellYard advantage Insomnia advantage Parity

Feature	Insomnia	ShellYard
REST (GET/POST/PUT/PATCH/DELETE/…)
GraphQL client + schema introspection
WebSocket
Server-Sent Events (SSE)
Request collections + folders
Environments + {{variable}} substitution
OAuth2 / Bearer / Basic / API-key auth
Postman v2.1 collection import
Pre-request + test scripts
Response viewer (JSON pretty-print, timing)
No-account local mode	— Cloud-first by default	✓ Free runs without an account
SSH-tunnel routing per request		✓ Tunnel-via on the request, env, or collection
SSH / RDP / VNC / Serial / SSM in-app
6-engine database inspector		✓ Postgres, MySQL, SQL Server, Redis, Mongo, SQLite
40+ network diagnostic tools		✓ MTR, packet capture, TLS, SNMP, DNS, syslog…
AI on responses (BYO key)	— AI features are Kong-hosted	✓ Magellan — Anthropic / OpenAI / Gemini / Ollama
Local credential vault		✓ AES-256-GCM (Free), KMS-wrapped DynamoDB (Pro+)
Shared Spaces with RBAC	✓ Cloud-only	✓ Shared Spaces (Team+)
Plugin ecosystem	✓ Community plugins
OAuth flow depth (implicit, PKCE, refresh, etc.)	✓ Mature	✓ Standard presets
Kong API gateway integration	✓ Native
inso CLI for CI/CD
Built-in mock servers
gRPC client
Code generation (20+ languages)
Pricing	Free / Pro / Enterprise (Cloud)	Free / $24 / $49 / $99 — annual prices, locked

Reflects publicly documented Insomnia capability at time of comparison.

Where Insomnia still wins

If these are load-bearing, keep Insomnia.

01

Plugin ecosystem

Community-built plugins for everything from JWT decoding to custom OAuth flows. We don't ship a plugin runtime.
02

OAuth flow polish

Implicit grant, code with PKCE, client credentials, password, refresh — all dialled in. Insomnia is the gold standard here.
03

Kong API gateway integration

If you run Kong, Insomnia is the natural pairing. Native publishing flow into the gateway.
04

inso CLI for CI/CD

Headless test runs in GitHub Actions / GitLab CI. ShellYard is desktop-only — no equivalent today.
05

Built-in mock servers

Stand up a fake endpoint in seconds. We don't host mocks — keep Insomnia if this is in your loop.
06

gRPC support

Insomnia ships a real gRPC client with reflection and streaming. We don't ship gRPC yet.
07

Code generation in 20+ languages

Copy a request out as cURL, Python requests, Go net/http, JS fetch, and the long tail. ShellYard does cURL today; the rest is on the list.

Plenty of teams run both — Insomnia for the plugin-driven flows, mocks, and CI; ShellYard for the no-account desktop work and the SSH / DB / network side of the stack.

Migration in one Insomnia export

Your workspace, on a local-first desktop.

1

Insomnia → Export your workspace.

Application Menu → Import/Export → Export Data → choose Insomnia v4 JSON or Postman v2.1. Save the file.
2

ShellYard → Collections → Import → Postman v2.1.

Use Insomnia's Postman v2.1 export as the bridge format. Folders, requests, auth presets, and {{variables}} all land intact.
3

Open a request. Pick Tunnel-via if internal. Fire. No account required.

For public APIs, you're already done. For internal ones, click the Tunnel-via pill and pick the SSH session you already use to reach the network. The URL keeps the real internal hostname; DNS, TLS, and body resolve from the bastion's side.

Before you install

The questions an Insomnia power-user asks.

Does ShellYard require an account on Free?

No. Free runs fully local — no sign-in screen, no Cloud login, no telemetry by default. You open the app and start working. Pro and above use a ShellYard account (AWS Cognito) for cloud sync of collections, environments, and credentials; the rest of the toolkit still runs locally.

Is there a plugin system like Insomnia’s?

No — we don't ship a plugin runtime. If your day-to-day workflow leans on a specific Insomnia plugin (JWT helpers, custom auth flows, request transforms, etc.), evaluate that before switching. Plenty of common plugin needs are covered as first-class features in ShellYard (Magellan AI for response analysis, the built-in credential vault, network tools), but a custom community plugin isn't replaceable.

Can ShellYard replace inso CLI in our CI pipeline?

No. ShellYard is desktop-only — there's no headless test runner today. If your GitHub Actions / GitLab CI invokes `inso run test`, keep Insomnia for that step. Teams typically run both: Insomnia + inso in CI, ShellYard on the desktop for everything else.

gRPC support?

Not yet. Insomnia ships a real gRPC client with reflection and streaming. If gRPC is a daily part of your work, that's a clear Insomnia win. REST, GraphQL, WebSocket, and SSE are all on ShellYard today.

Mock servers?

We don't host mock servers. Insomnia (and its Kong-hosted mocks) wins this one outright. If standing up a fake endpoint in seconds is part of your loop, keep Insomnia for that.

Telemetry — what gets sent?

ShellYard has opt-in anonymized usage telemetry, configurable from Settings, off by default on Free. Magellan AI calls go directly from your machine to your chosen AI provider (Anthropic / OpenAI / Gemini / Ollama) — they never transit our infrastructure. There is no per-request telemetry pipeline.

Is ShellYard open source?

No — ShellYard is a paid commercial desktop app. Insomnia has an OSS Core (the inso CLI and community edition are open source), but the desktop Insomnia client's recent direction is Cloud-first. If open-source-by-license is a hard requirement, ShellYard isn't the right tool; if open-source-by-trust (no forced sign-in, no telemetry-by-default, local-first) is what you actually wanted, that's what we built.

No account. No Cloud. Just the desktop app.

Install. Open it. Send a request. If the rest of the toolkit — SSH, the DB inspector, the network tools, the AI assistant on responses — earns its place, stay. If it doesn't, uninstall. No sign-in screen between you and the decision.