Introducing Insomnia Designer

TL;DR: Insomnia Designer a new open-source desktop application that provides a modern workflow for teams to design and collaborate on APIs.

If you're a software developer, there's a good chance you interact with APIs almost every day. Since 2015, it's been Insomnia's goal to help make this process as simple and enjoyable as possible. Fast-forward to today and Insomnia is the leading open-source tool for interacting with REST and GraphQL APIs.

Interaction is only half the story, however, which is why we're pleased to announce Insomnia Designer—a new application that focuses on improving the API design workflow that so many companies struggle with.

Designer builds on top of the existing Insomnia (now Insomnia Core) codebase to facilitate a "spec-first development" workflow that allows you to design and edit OpenApi documents in one place, share them across your organization using Git, and interact with them using the Insomnia features you already know and love 💜

This first release contains a core set of features to edit and share OpenAPI specifications, with the intention of involving the community as soon as possible to help shape drive the app in the right direction. So, we encourage you to take it for a spin and submit any and all feedback to the Insomnia GitHub Repo, or join our Community Slack.

Feature Highlight

• Edit OpenAPI specifications
• Preview specs using Swagger UI
• Git integration
• Linting and error checking
• High-level filterable view of all documents
• Debug and explore APIs (like Insomnia Core)
• Extend with Plugins

• Kong integration via kong-bundle Plugin

  • Deploy to Kong Portal
  • Generate Kong Declarative Config
  • Generate Kong for Kubernetes Config

Common Questions

Who is it for? 🤗
Designer is for developers and teams designing and creating APIs. Today, it's not uncommon for organizations to manage hundreds of APIs that span across teams and departments. Our plan is to make Designer into a platform developers can use to collaboratively design, review, test API specifications during the API development process.

Where can I download it? 🛒
Designer is a free and open-source desktop application that can be installed on Mac, Windows, or Linux. Visit the Download page to get started.

Why open source? 💜
Insomnia Core would not be where it is today without the help of the open-source community. We're using the same strategy for Designer in order to help make it as robust, full-featured, and adaptable as possible. Visit the GitHub Repository to learn more.

Why a separate app? 📦
Insomnia is an extremely powerful tool, but most users love it for how simple and easy it is to use. In order to maintain this core tenet, Designer needs to be simple too, which is why we're releasing Insomnia Designer as a separate application, focused specifically on API design.

Does it support Insomnia Plus/Team accounts? 💼
Designer does not currently integrate with existing Insomnia Plus/Team accounts, but we plan on adding support in the future.