Hoppscotch

What is Hoppscotch?

Hoppscotch is an open source API client that runs in your browser: a tool for building, sending, and inspecting API requests without installing a heavy desktop app. It covers REST and GraphQL alongside realtime protocols — WebSocket, Server-Sent Events, Socket.IO, and MQTT — and saves your work into reusable collections and environments.

What is Hoppscotch best for?

Developers and teams who want a fast, no-install client for everyday request testing, and who would rather self-host their API workspace than keep collections in a vendor’s cloud. It shines when you want to open a URL, hit an endpoint, and share the same workspace with teammates in minutes rather than onboarding everyone into a desktop app.

What can Hoppscotch do?

• Send REST and GraphQL requests, plus realtime WebSocket, SSE, Socket.IO, and MQTT connections
• Organize requests into collections and folders with unlimited environments and variables
• Run pre-request scripts and write post-request tests to validate responses
• Authenticate with Basic, Bearer Token, OAuth 2.0, and OIDC (PKCE) flows
• Generate ready-to-paste code snippets for 10+ languages and frameworks
• Install it as an offline-capable PWA, or use the browser extension and desktop apps
• Share workspaces and collections with teammates, with role-based access on team plans
• Automate collection runs in CI with the Hoppscotch CLI

Is Hoppscotch free?

Yes — Hoppscotch is free and MIT-licensed to self-host, and the hosted Hoppscotch Cloud has a free-forever plan with unlimited workspaces, collections, and requests. Paid pricing only starts with the Organization plan (around $6/user/month) and the self-hosted Enterprise Edition, which adds SAML SSO, OIDC, and audit logs on top of the open source core.

Where does Hoppscotch fall short?

• Because it runs in the browser, calling APIs that don’t return permissive CORS headers — or a service on localhost — needs the Hoppscotch browser extension or desktop app to act as an interceptor. A native desktop client like Postman sidesteps this by default.
• Org-wide security is open-core: SAML/SSO, OIDC login, and audit logs live in the paid Enterprise Edition, so the free self-hosted Community Edition can’t do single sign-on for a whole team.
• Its ecosystem is smaller than Postman’s — there’s no direct equivalent of Postman’s large template gallery, mock servers, and monitors, so heavier API-ops workflows may still pull you back to a commercial client.

What does Hoppscotch replace?

Hoppscotch is a direct alternative to Postman — the same design-send-test-collaborate loop, but open source, browser-first, and self-hostable, so your API collections don’t have to live in a vendor cloud or cost per user to share. It covers much of the same ground as Insomnia, the other widely used API client, while staying free to self-host.

FAQ

Is Hoppscotch open source? Yes. Hoppscotch is released under the permissive MIT license, and both the cloud and self-hosted Community Edition are fully open source. Only the Enterprise Edition’s SSO, OIDC, and audit-log add-ons are commercial.

Can I self-host Hoppscotch for free? Yes. The Community Edition self-hosts with Docker at no cost using the project’s docker-compose files; you only pay if you want the Enterprise Edition’s SSO, OIDC, and audit logs.

Is Hoppscotch a good Postman alternative? For most everyday API testing, yes — it loads instantly in the browser and is free to self-host. If you depend on Postman’s mock servers, monitors, or large integration gallery, you may hit gaps.

What do I need to run Hoppscotch? For the hosted cloud, just a browser. To self-host, a server with Docker; note that reaching non-CORS or localhost APIs from the web app requires the browser extension or desktop app as an interceptor.