Launching Bruno - Local-first Opensource API Client (postman alternative)

Hi there 👋

I am launching bruno. A Local-first Opensource API Client. In this post, I'd like to share the goals, motivations and story behind this project.

Quick intro, I am Anoop , a full stack software programmer based out of Bangalore.

In my decade long journey of developing software, every time I need to explore or work with api’s, I usually have to ask my colleagues to slack/email me a postman collection.

Postman has a great collaboration platform for teams (it's gotten bloated these days though), but many companies stick to sharing collections via slack/email instead of opting for the paid plan.

I searched for an opensource alternatives which companies can self host on their servers, but sadly none exist. Every opensource alternative (Insomnia, Hoppscotch.. etc) has a closed source component which restricts companies from self hosting.

Bruno (named after my pet golden retriever) is my attempt at solving 2 key problems.

1. Build end-to-end opensource platform that companies can self-host to enable developers to collaborate on api collections.

Currently all the projects (I have included the popular clients in above image) out there keep the sync server as closed source. With Bruno, I want to build an end-to-end opensource platform that companies can self host.

2. BYOVC (Bring Your Own Version Control) - Allow developers to directly store there collections on top of their local filesystem. The collections are mirrored as folders and files on the filesystem

Bruno (on the desktop app) allows you to directly load and save collections on top of your local filesystem. This gives developers the freedom to use the versioning system of their choice(ex: git) to share and collaborate over collections.

You can checkout the project on github, I’d appreciate your thoughts, ideas or feedback.

I have also written about how Bruno is different on how we think around the concepts of Workspaces, Collections and Environments here

Github: https://github.com/usebruno/bruno
Live Demo: https://play.usebruno.com/
Launch Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwXJW7_qyLA
Website: https://www.usebruno.com

Comments

[Jannis]

Pretty cool, I like it!

[Anoop M D]

Thanks, Jannis!

[Jannis]

I would love a feature "documentation" for the future! If I can then export a page or host it somehow then I will probably build it in my project!
Btw. you can read my two small blog posts and maybe know a bit what I'm building and as you'll realise I will need a good documentation for API and others :)

[Anoop M D]

Went through your posts. Looking forward to the updates on Aquahub.
I have created a github issue to track your request.

[Jannis]

Awesome! Thanks

[Fadhil ⚡]

nice work

[Anoop M D]

Thanks @fadhilsaheer !

[Anoop M D]

@fadhilsaheer went through your blog. Looks slick.

[José Pablo Ramírez Vargas]

This sounds very interesting. I have saved it for reference. While I don't think I'll explore on this right now, I really want to be on top of news, so I also followed.

[Anoop M D]

Sure 😊, Thanks Jose!