Tiger vs Bruno

Tiger and Bruno share the same founding conviction: API collections belong in your Git repository, not in a vendor's cloud. Both are MIT-licensed, fully offline, and require no account. This page lays out where they differ, fairly and without marketing spin, so you can choose the right tool for your team.

What they have in common

Before the differences, the common ground is substantial. Both tools store every request as a human-readable plain-text file - .tiger for Tiger, .bru for Bruno - inside a normal folder on disk. That folder is a Git repository, so requests get versioned, branched, diffed, and reviewed alongside code. Neither product requires an account, neither phones home with your request data, and both run natively on macOS and Windows (Tiger also ships first-class Linux builds as of 0.4.0). Both support REST, GraphQL, {{variable}} interpolation, named environments, OAuth 2.0, pre- and post-request JavaScript, and collection-level runners.

Side-by-side comparison

Where Tiger goes further

Built-in MCP server

Tiger ships a Model Context Protocol server (tiger-mcp) that exposes your saved requests as tools for any MCP-compatible AI client. Claude Desktop, Cursor, and others can call list_requests, list_environments, get_request, and run_request against your collection without leaving the chat. The server reads your collection from disk; your request data goes nowhere except to the API you are calling.

Configure it in claude_desktop_config.json like this:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "tiger": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": [
        "/path/to/tiger/out/mcp/server.mjs",
        "/path/to/your/collection"
      ]
    }
  }
}

WSDL / SOAP import (new in 0.4.0)

Point Tiger at a .wsdl file and it parses the binding operations and generates one POST request per operation. Each request arrives with:

• A ready-to-fill SOAP envelope in the body, pre-populated with the correct element names for that operation.
• Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8 (SOAP 1.1) or application/soap+xml (SOAP 1.2).
• The SOAPAction header set to the correct URI for SOAP 1.1 operations.

For teams that maintain legacy enterprise services alongside modern REST APIs, this means everything lives in one client rather than keeping a separate SOAP tool.

Client certificates and mTLS

Tiger accepts a custom CA bundle for self-signed or internal PKI certificates, and supports client certificate authentication via either a PEM key/cert pair or a PFX / PKCS12 file. This covers mutual TLS scenarios common in financial services, healthcare, and internal microservice meshes. Bruno does not currently ship this capability.

Performance runs

Select any request, open the Perf tab, set the number of iterations and a concurrency level, and Tiger fires the requests and reports min, max, avg, p50, and p95 latency inline. No external tool, no subscription. Bruno has no equivalent; you would reach for k6 or wrk.

Declarative response captures

Tiger's capture block in the .tiger format lets you pull a value from any response - status code, a response header, or a JSON path like body.data[0].id - and write it into an environment variable for the next request. This is declared in the file, not in a script, so it shows up in diffs and reviews without requiring anyone to read JavaScript:

capture {
  token: body.access_token
  userId: body.user.id
}

Bruno can achieve the same result through a post-request script, but there is no dedicated syntax, so the intent is less visible in code review.

Built-in Git UI

Tiger surfaces Git operations - status, diff, commit, push, pull, branch, checkout, clone, discard, log, and sync - inside the app. Team members who do not use a terminal can still participate in version control without a separate GUI client.

Where Bruno goes further

CLI runner for CI

Bruno ships @usebruno/cli, a standalone Node package that runs a collection from the command line. This makes it straightforward to add API test suites to a CI pipeline without any desktop app. Tiger is desktop-only; there is no equivalent CLI runner today.

Community and ecosystem

Bruno launched in 2022 and has tens of thousands of GitHub stars. The ecosystem includes community-built plugins, integrations, and third-party tooling built on the documented .bru file format. If you need to find a ready-made solution for an unusual workflow, the Bruno community is a larger pool to draw from.

JavaScript scripting maturity

Bruno's pre- and post-request scripting, assertions, and test output have had more time to mature and accumulate community examples. Both tools run sandboxed JavaScript, but Bruno's ecosystem of documented patterns for complex scripting scenarios is broader.

Which should you choose?

Choose Tiger if any of these apply:

• You want AI clients (Claude, Cursor) to discover and run requests from your collection via MCP without extra tooling.
• Your team works with SOAP or WSDL-described services alongside REST APIs.
• You need client certificate (mTLS) authentication.
• You want built-in load and latency profiling without wiring up a separate runner.
• You want declarative request chaining that reads clearly in a pull request diff.
• You want Git commits and pushes accessible inside the API client for the whole team, including those who do not use a terminal.
• You are running Linux and want an officially supported first-class build.
• You are migrating from Bruno and want full import support with no data loss.

Choose Bruno if any of these apply:

• You need a CLI runner to execute API test suites in CI without a desktop app.
• You want a tool with years of real-world use and a large public community.
• Your workflow depends on JavaScript scripting with a mature assertion library and abundant community examples.
• Your team already has tooling built around the documented .bru format.
• Your requests are REST and GraphQL only, with no SOAP or mTLS requirement.

Frequently asked questions

Does Tiger export back to Bruno's format?

Not currently. Tiger exports to Postman v2.1, OpenAPI 3.0, curl, and JavaScript fetch. If you need to move work back to Bruno, exporting to Postman v2.1 and then importing that into Bruno is the most complete path.

Do both tools support secret variables?

Yes. In Tiger, marking a variable as secret masks its value in the UI so it does not appear in screenshots or screen shares. The value is still stored in the environments file on disk, so how you handle that file in Git (gitignore, secrets manager, etc.) is your responsibility - the same is true in Bruno.

Which tool is better for a team?

Both store collections in Git, which is the most durable basis for team collaboration. Tiger's built-in Git UI lowers the bar for team members who do not use the terminal. Bruno's CLI runner is valuable if your team wants collection tests to run automatically in CI. The right answer depends on which gap matters more to your team.

Is Tiger's MCP server safe to use?

The MCP server reads your collection from disk and sends requests to the URLs defined in your collection, exactly as if you pressed Send yourself. It does not send your collection data to any third party. The AI client sees the request definition and the response; your API credentials stay in your environment files on your machine.

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