Marco here, CTO at Kong (the parent company of Insomnia). You will see some of my replies in the GitHub issue where this conversation is taking place.
I want to clarify a couple of things:
1) Insomnia can still be used locally in any version prior to this one. The data is there, and can be used.
2) Insomnia still has a local-only mode (Scratch Pad) that doesn't require any account, that anybody can use. A collection can be imported into Scratch Pad for API debugging purposes.
3) There is an onboarding step that clearly states what's going to happen and that allows the user to export the data. We also don't migrate any data until an account is created.
4) Data is not migrated in the cloud when collaborating with Git Sync, which is a capability that allows us to use Git as the source of truth. It is also not migrated without creating an account.
5) When migrating to the cloud, data is fully end-to-end encrypted (E2EE). That is the case for free accounts as well, not only premium plans.
6) Any organization that is serious about security can get in touch with Kong to pass the security compliance assessment and use the cloud like they most likely do with any other vendor.
7) We will even further improve clarity with a new minor version (8.1) that makes all of the above more clear (how to export/import etc).
What's not seen in that conversation, is the large number of users that wanted a product that allowed them to collaborate better, without losing their data, and sync that data securely across multiple clients. Which is why we tried to strike a balance between convenience and feature-richness (cloud) but still provide a local option for other users (Scratch Pad).
I can assure you that we didn't wake up one day and choose violence :) Ultimately, I am also perfectly aware that we can't make everybody happy.
1) Receive popup asking if I want to install the latest version (no warning of the consequences of doing so) which I accept
2) Be greeted by a 'sign in' screen as well as a new Scratchpad icon which doesn't contain any of my projects/collections/requests.. at this point I believe all my data has been wiped (and it probably would've been if I had uninstalled the app when I downgraded instead of overwriting the existing one)
It's a shame because I have promoted your product to over a hundred classmates/coworkers/friends that were previously using Postman/HTTPie/curl.. even if you didn't financially benefit from my use then it also didn't cost you anything, and I provided a lot of free conversions (some of whom might be using your cloud solutions, no idea)..
At least version 2023.5.8 is almost perfect so I'll probably be happy with using that for decades if no better alternative appear.. only downside is that the generated code snippets are kinda shitty (especially for golang, and some obvious languages missing) and I guess I won't be benefiting from improvements made there.
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A couple of ideas I would personally pay for with the local version of Insomnia:
- Create my own code snippets (so I don't need to rewrite code generated from your Generate Client Code).
- Ability to create HTTP Request templates so you don't need to duplicate existing ones (which you can't do across collections as well).
Have more but I guess it would be a waste of time since you seem fully committed to your choice of violence ^_^
Tomorrow we will ship a new version (8.1) with a better understanding around how to export data and how to use Scratch Pad because I agree we can improve clarity.
But if you only have one collection, Scratch Pad is still local only. So you can keep using Insomnia on Scratch Pad, still get product updates and it’s free.
> So you can keep using Insomnia on Scratch Pad, still get product updates and it’s free.
Sure, if I want to stare at a large purple 'Create an account' banner all day, and some three other locations in the UI in which I can click some variety of 'create an account'.
Bro, why is the migrate step behind a signup? How is that not hostile to users? I will make sure my company never buys anything Kong. You have to know you are selling to devs.
The export is before the signup. Nothing gets migrated without a signup.
But not making it easier to understand what was happening was an oversight, and we will make it more clear in v8.1 (as soon as this week). So 8.0 will be a 2-day release in this regard.
You can also download any previous version of Insomnia and export from there. Without an account, the data never leaves your computer either way.
This is a whole bunch of corporate bullshit for "everybody just migrated to our platform from Postman, and now we're proudly making the same mistakes that made everybody leave Postman"
I want to clarify a couple of things:
1) Insomnia can still be used locally in any version prior to this one. The data is there, and can be used.
2) Insomnia still has a local-only mode (Scratch Pad) that doesn't require any account, that anybody can use. A collection can be imported into Scratch Pad for API debugging purposes.
3) There is an onboarding step that clearly states what's going to happen and that allows the user to export the data. We also don't migrate any data until an account is created.
4) Data is not migrated in the cloud when collaborating with Git Sync, which is a capability that allows us to use Git as the source of truth. It is also not migrated without creating an account.
5) When migrating to the cloud, data is fully end-to-end encrypted (E2EE). That is the case for free accounts as well, not only premium plans.
6) Any organization that is serious about security can get in touch with Kong to pass the security compliance assessment and use the cloud like they most likely do with any other vendor.
7) We will even further improve clarity with a new minor version (8.1) that makes all of the above more clear (how to export/import etc).
What's not seen in that conversation, is the large number of users that wanted a product that allowed them to collaborate better, without losing their data, and sync that data securely across multiple clients. Which is why we tried to strike a balance between convenience and feature-richness (cloud) but still provide a local option for other users (Scratch Pad).
I can assure you that we didn't wake up one day and choose violence :) Ultimately, I am also perfectly aware that we can't make everybody happy.