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Show HN: Yaak – An open source, Git-friendly desktop API client

by gschier on 2/26/25, 5:24 PM with 61 comments

Hi HN! I'm Greg and I've been working on Yaak for just over a year. I usually describe it as a Postman alternative since most developers are familiar with that, but it's targeted more toward users that just want an API client (no mocking, testing, spec design, etc).

Having also created Insomnia for a similar purpose, I never thought I'd build another API client again. But, after selling Insomnia in 2019 and watching it expand into the broader feature set of Postman, I was left wanting a simpler tool again. Yaak was my answer to that.

It's hard to describe how it's better than the 100 other API clients, since its main benefit is design, but there are a few stand-out features:

- Optionally sync data to a local directory as plain-text, for use with Git/etc - Build and install plugins for authentication, template functions, or generic actions - Support for REST, GraphQL, WebSocket, server sent events, and gRPC

Yaak requires a license for commercial use but this only applies when using the prebuilt binaries. If building from source, a license is not required.

It's available for Mac, Windows, and Linux and the source is at https://github.com/mountain-loop/yaak

I'd love to hear you think!

  • by yoyohello13 on 2/27/25, 4:39 PM

    The Software tool lifecycle:

    1. Dev makes a cool lightweight productive tool

    2. Tool becomes popular

    3. Company buys tool

    4. Company adds a bunch of shit nobody needs making the product bloated and annoying to use.

    5. Dev makes a cool lightweight productive tool

  • by sunnybeetroot on 2/27/25, 6:01 AM

    This is excellent Greg thanks for sharing! One thing I do find missing from a lot of these API clients is synced environment variable entries between environments.

    For example if I create a `dev` environment that contains a `base_url` environment variable, it's expected that when I create a `prod` environment, it will also have a `base_url` environment variable. Then in the future if I add more environment variables to my `dev` environment, I need to duplicate the work of adding an environment variable entry to `prod.

    I can't be the only one that experiences this pain :P The UX of this could be handled in any number of ways:

    - When you create a new environment, ask if you want to duplicate an existing environment's variable names (with empty values)

    - If you add a new environment variable, ask if you want to add the environment variable name to another environment

    - Option to enable syncing between all environments i.e. deleting a variable row in one environment deletes it for the rest etc

    I was about to post this as a github issue for traction but given Issues are turned off thought this may be the next best place.

    Regardless, Yaak is excellent!

  • by dhruvkb on 2/26/25, 9:06 PM

    Would love to see a comparison with Bruno[1].

    [1]: https://usebruno.com

  • by unchar1 on 2/27/25, 4:13 PM

    > Yaak is still open source under the MIT license. You can view, modify, and run the source code for both personal and commercial use. Licensing applies only to the prebuilt binaries.

    That's a pretty interesting pricing strategy. I think REHL is the only other project I saw with this type of pricing.

  • by JadoJodo on 2/27/25, 5:59 PM

    > The interface is clean and much nicer to use than bloated alternatives like Insomnia and Postman.

    As I recall, both _used_ to be the same way.

  • by DrBenCarson on 2/26/25, 9:00 PM

    This got much less attention than I would have expected.

    Yaak is awesome, please please please keep it local-friendly

  • by danstewart_ on 2/27/25, 11:32 PM

    I’ve been using Yaak for a few weeks now and it’s great.

    I bounce around API clients a lot because the UX just never feels right, they always get in the way or start to feel clunky sooner or later.

    With Yaak it feels natural, it’s clean and simple and is a joy to use.

    I’m looking forward to seeing it grow and improve further.

    I just hope as its feature set grows it can hold on to that simplicity. Hopefully the plugin system can be used to bridge any gaps without overloading the main app.

  • by desertkun on 2/27/25, 10:33 PM

    Ah! I was so happy I can put postman to rest. What I didn't like is the landing page did not clearly communicate I am installing a non-free product with a trial, so I uninstalled it. I am only letting you know that this trick might affect retention.

  • by BilalBudhani on 2/28/25, 7:42 AM

    Yaak is great, I have been using it since the launch Greg.

    I'm kind of curious why you picked Tauri over Electron for this one? I know one big benefit is smaller binaries but I'd love to know your thoughts behind this decision.

  • by martin_a on 2/27/25, 3:57 PM

    How can we be sure that Yaak won't be sold and enshittified two years from now?

    Maybe I'm nitpicky, but I love sticking to software for years, had to ditch Insomnia after an auto-update killed my collections and wanted me to sign up for a cloud service. Could happen with this (yes, any software for that matter), too, because you'll sell it in a year from now.

  • by desertkun on 2/27/25, 10:42 PM

    Did you consider JetBrains licensing model? I don't like renting software, I'd rather buy it upfront, but JetBrains with their fallback licenses really got me – you get your perpetual fallback license for a particular version of product. And guess what, I keep paying them anyway, because of confidence I can fallback, but they keep innovating with new updates.

  • by denvermullets on 2/27/25, 4:35 PM

    fantastic. i was about to make my own after being frustated with bruno's change in billing and just lack of quality.

    having gone from postman -> insomnia -> back to postman -> bruno - id like to just have something simple that _just works_ without making it a pain.

    looking forward to giving this a spin.

  • by dban on 2/27/25, 4:27 PM

    > But, after selling Insomnia in 2019 and watching it expand into the broader feature set of Postman, I was left wanting a simpler tool again. Yaak was my answer to that

    I'd love to read about your experience building two distinct but similar products in the same space years apart

  • by Atotalnoob on 2/28/25, 1:54 AM

    What about a license for devs to use when it’s commercial, but their company won’t buy it?

    Kind of like how Quokka has a “personal pro” license.

    https://quokkajs.com/pro/

  • by czhu12 on 2/26/25, 10:35 PM

    I use yaak! Great piece of software for just not having to memorize curl syntax, wrestle postman

    What’s the end goal though? Planning to sell a licensed version? I’d be happy to pay for a model where I can own it for life but only get updates for a year.

  • by foo42 on 2/28/25, 8:06 AM

    Thought this was about the language learning app https://yakk.app/ for a brief moment looming at the URL!

  • by yoeven on 2/27/25, 6:13 PM

    Looks great!! I would love to move to this as my go-to API client but my fear is it stops getting maintained overtime like httpie.io but at least this is open source so a great win!

  • by saikatsg on 2/27/25, 7:54 PM

    Cool stuff, how does it compare with httpYac? > https://httpyac.github.io/

  • by Gys on 2/27/25, 6:04 PM

    Downloaded it, looks great. I am building a desktop app as well (very different functionality) and I wonder how do you do license management?

  • by ianred on 2/28/25, 3:34 AM

    Was looking for a simple API fiddler, and you presented one! Thank you, will jump on it ASAP to play.

  • by tv10 on 2/27/25, 5:33 PM

    I love your landing page & overall design of the home page. So clean. Love the color scheme as well.

  • by codecraze on 2/26/25, 9:43 PM

    Congratulations ! Will test this out tomorrow :)

  • by anon115 on 2/28/25, 4:32 PM

    what tech did you use to make it desktop app? ----I'm looking to use Avalonia UI soon, ive used Wails tho.

  • by opem on 2/27/25, 8:40 AM

    Yaak is so underrated!