enshittification / needing an account

[ChristianSch]

Expected Behavior

I would like to be able to use insomnia without an account or be warned BEFORE an update that you'll lock me out of my stuff.

Actual Behavior

you just locked me out

Reproduction Steps

No response

Is there an existing issue for this?

• [X] I have searched the issue tracker for this problem.

Additional Information

I really really do know that this is not the place, but wtf guys, come on? Have you learned nothing from Postman? Their enshittification gave you the traffic to grow in the first place and now you're doing the same shit?

Insomnia Version

v8.0.0

What operating system are you using?

macOS

Operating System Version

macOS sonoma

Installation method

download

Last Known Working Insomnia version

< 8.0.0

[billriess]

@billriess they can continue with "Free" and still be able to access the team.

This worked. Thank you! It's so obscure and makes no sense that they need to click "Downgrade" their Team Account to Free Account in order to access the paid Team Account...

[subnetmarco]

@billriess it's a little bit like GitHub: the users can individually be on a Free plan, but when they are invited to join an organization and work on the organization projects, they are working under the umbrella of the organization subscription (Team, in your case).

[billriess]

@subnetmarco I get that but this should have happened automatically in the background when the app was migrated to this new system. Again, its very confusing to ask someone to downgrade their account to a free plan from a team plan in order for them to access the team plan they already are a member of. At the very least, it should allow them access to the team plan they are already a member of and they can setup their personal account later.

Even more confusing, the page says "Your subscription is past due" which would make the user think there is an issue with the billing on the organization. This entire flow is bad.

[Notuom]

This is anti-user design trying to get people onto their account system to sell licenses. I downgraded to the previous version and am now actively looking for different software. I moved away from Postman a few years ago because it had become bloated with the same anti-user design. As many others here, now looking for alternatives.

[subnetmarco]

Given the large amount of feedback, I am writing here the current situation.

What changed with Insomnia 8.0 when it comes to your data?

With Insomnia 8.0 we are doing two new things:

1. After downloading the new binary (either manually or via the auto-update) we show an onboarding wizard that communicates that your data (collections, tests, etc) will be synchronized to the cloud after the user creates an account or signs in. There is an option to export the data, and the data is not actually synchronized until either an account is being created, or a login is being performed.
2. We are also introducing a new Scratch Pad mode that is always local and never synchronized to the cloud, and doesn't require an account with Insomnia.

The data is always end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) in the cloud, therefore no-one (not even Insomnia or Kong) can access it without a valid passphrase. Which is also why losing the passphrase can lead to loss of data, it's because of E2EE.

Can Insomnia still be used for Free?

Yes, we offer a Free plan that you can use.

Why were these changes introduced?

These changes were introduced because:

1. We have a significant amount of the user base that wants to collaborate and automatically synchronize their data across their clients. This is impossible without leveraging the cloud to do so. Insomnia uses E2EE for each user, including the Free ones, to still be able to do this securely.
2. There is a significant effort in maintaining full support for an abstraction that supports two different backend (in the cloud, and locally), which is causing a large amount of issues and migration problems. We are therefore introducing limited support for the local backend storage in Scratch Pad only (more limited than the cloud one), and investing in making the cloud storage solid, stable and secure.

How to retrieve your data?

1. Your data can be retrieved in Insomnia 8.0 by exporting it via the initial onboarding wizard.
2. Your data can be retrieved by downgrading to an older version of Insomnia and exporting it.
3. Admittedly this is confusing, which is why we will be building another "Export" button in the "Preferences" and ship it as soon as possible.

Can I still use Insomnia locally only?

Yes, you can via the Scratch Pad capability which is always local and doesn't require an account. You can also export your data and re-import a collection into Scratch Pad and keep working locally.

Also with Git Sync, the data is always stored in your Git repository and never in the cloud.

Why is Insomnia making this move?

We are making this move for three reasons:

1) Roadmap: we are catering to new use-cases (collaboration, backups, synchronization, etc) that require the cloud to work and that many Insomnia users (not on this thread, obviously) are requiring. 2) Technical: we want to reduce the technical burden of having to support two backends for our storage, which has cause lots of problems in the past. 3) Business: Insomnia - whether is used locally or in the cloud - is a large project that requires significant resources to keep improving and getting better. By offering a cloud version of Insomnia, we can provide premium capabilities that can further allow us to keep this project running and active. This is not different from any other product that needs to find a way to self-sustain itself in the long term. The project also needs a lot more investments to do many of the things the community is asking, which means we need to allocate more resources, and we will. But we need a viable business to do all of these things.

What about the security of my data in the cloud?

Everything that Insomnia does is end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) also when it's stored in the cloud. Nobody can access your data without a valid passphrase, which is why when using Insomnia is important to always remember the passphrase you have selected (which used to be associated to your account password in the past).Insomnia is built by Kong, which at the time of this writing works with 600+ enterprise organizations including Top Fortune 500 and Top Global 5000 around the world, so we can cater to every requirement from every security team in the world. Just get in touch with us.

On a personal note: we are trying to do the right thing for our users, many of which want us to offer capabilities that are not possible without a cloud. I understand that many of you are very upset by this change, which is why we are still committing to offering a local-only version of Insomnia via the Scratch Pad. The amount of effort it's taking us to offer a E2EE cloud is also outrageous, but we want to do the right thing and still provide it for all of our users free of charge (that is, also Free plan users).

I apologize for not having built a more intuitive way to export/import the data, this was an oversight as we were SO excited about all the other capabilities that we have shipped that we didn't think this through well enough.

But it can still be done by:

• Downgrading to an older version of Insomnia
• Exporting the collection
• Re-importing the collection into Scratch Pad.

I hope that you will still find pleasure to use Insomnia whether it's in the cloud or locally in the Scratch Pad, but if this direction does not fit your ideas of where the project should go, then we will be sad to lose you.

[ptebault]

But it can still be done by:

Downgrading to an older version of Insomnia Exporting the collection Re-importing the collection into Scratch Pad.

This should be an option in the wizard. I don't, can't, and won't keep my data in your cloud, for reasons. Also, since the above flow was not an option visible in the wizard, the wizard is now gone.

Pull me with more features and cool stuff, fine, but don't take away the baseline local functionality. It's a social contract, and you've actively gained mindshare by engaging in that contract. You don't get to run off and choose a different path without incurring the cost of the loss of reputation, the loss of eyeballs, the loss of engagement, the loss of brand value.

Sorry to see you go.

[justin-caldicott]

I only need a simple rest client. Seems like the scratch pad may still be that option. But I'll probably look elsewhere because:

• Taking away data and making us export-import to get it back is not OK
• The main focus no longer seems to be a simple REST client
• I'm not sure how the scratch pad will work. If it was too much work to support a local data source, then surely the scratch pad is the same thing?

[subnetmarco]

Scratch Pad is easier on our end because it's only for collections (not design specs, tests, etc). It does not require an account, and it's local only.

It looks like this:

[cha-king]

I'm all for the scratch pad, but let's not pretend that that banner isn't meant to be a deterrent 😁

[subnetmarco]

Taking away data and making us export-import to get it back is not OK

There is a technical reason for this sub-par experience: we have users that are storing all sort of files (not just collections, but teams, many projects, tests, and so on). Given that Scratch Pad is limited and only support a collection, we cannot provide a quick migration to Scratch Pad for any users that doing more than just using Insomnia as a simple client.

By showing the Scratch Pad populated by default with only one collection, there would be a whole bunch of users thinking that all their other data is lost. So we are damned if we do and damned if we don't type of situation.

We opted to either "Export all data" in the onboarding wizard or "Move all to cloud" to keep it easy and not end up in weird data edge-cases with Scratch Pad.

[subnetmarco]

@cha-king We want to advertise that there is a lot more besides the Scratch Pad, even for Free users.

But in general, we built a local Scratch Pad, we subsidized Insomnia for 7 years, we subsidized E2EE for all users throughout all of this time, without basically monetizing any user (we didn't even have a login button in the app until recently).

Please allow us to put a banner after almost a decade.

[platevoltage]

@cha-king We want to advertise that there is a lot more besides the Scratch Pad, even for Free users.

But in general, we built a local Scratch Pad, we subsidized Insomnia for 7 years, we subsidized E2EE for all users throughout all of this time, without basically monetizing any user (we didn't even have a login button in the app until recently).

Please allow us to put a banner after almost a decade.

A dismiss button would be nice.

[TheBeachMaster]

No one asked for this. 👎🏿

[Arctomachine]

@cha-king We want to advertise that there is a lot more besides the Scratch Pad, even for Free users.

But in general, we built a local Scratch Pad, we subsidized Insomnia for 7 years, we subsidized E2EE for all users throughout all of this time, without basically monetizing any user (we didn't even have a login button in the app until recently).

Please allow us to put a banner after almost a decade.

But here is the problem. If you want to monetize your userbase by inconveniencing them, you are not going to get far with that. Unity is doing something similar as we speak, by the way. You can check their situation and see where their not-well-thought decision got them.

[baek-sang]

Unfortunately, there's no reason to use insomnia anymore. It forces cloud synchronization like postman does, but it has a worse UI, UX, and functionality than postman. If you need cloud sync, you're better off with postman (which also has a scratch pad).

alternative https://github.com/usebruno/bruno https://github.com/hoppscotch/hoppscotch https://www.thunderclient.com/

[subnetmarco]

It forces cloud synchronization like postman does

Scratch Pad is still here. It's local and doesn't require an account. You can still import your collection into Scratch Pad.

[crestonbunch]

@subnetmarco I understand as CTO you have to look at things from a business perspective, but I would encourage you to reflect deeper on what everyone in this thread is saying. Think about your product from a user perspective. If everyone is saying one thing, and you're saying another, you’re probably the one who is wrong. Learn from this mistake and do better next time. You lost a lot of goodwill in this thread.

[splix]

Insomnia just deleted all my existing requests, when it suggested to upgrade. It didn't ask to export, backup or anything before this upgrade. It's a total disaster.

[bertag]

It forces cloud synchronization like postman does

Scratch Pad is still here. It's local and doesn't require an account. You can still import your collection into Scratch Pad.

@subnetmarco Do plugins work with Scratch Pad?

[subnetmarco]

@splix For the sake of clarity:

Insomnia just deleted all my existing requests

Your requests should still be there. You can either create an account with Insomnia (can be a Free account) or downgrade to a previous version of Insomnia. When creating an account, the data is end-to-end encrypted to the cloud vault.

It didn't ask to export, backup or anything before this upgrade.

After the upgrade there is an onboarding wizard which says the data will be migrated to the cloud, and that it can be exported. Your data has not been migrated yet, unless an account has been created or a login has been executed.

[subnetmarco]

@bertag Not at the moment, but this was an oversight. Plugins will work with Scratch Pad with Insomnia 8.1 which will also include a more clear path way to export the data when in the Scratch Pad, for those that didn't export it during the onboarding wizard.

Insomnia 8.1 will ship soon, perhaps even this week.

[splix]

@subnetmarco no, it doesn't. The only option it provides is "Continue with ..." to migrate to the cloud and "Use Scratch Pad". There is no option to export or downgrade.

[subnetmarco]

@splix This is the screenshot of the wizard with title and description of what will happen, and the optionality of being able to export the data for portability. The data is also available if you downgrade, or available if you login.

With Git Sync, the data is never migrated to the cloud. With Scratch Pad, it is always local.

[jeffreydwalter]

What an amazing introduction to Kong's product offerings! I went from a happy user of Insomnia that was sharing how great it was with all of my colleagues, to a confused and upset online comment writer in just one short week! 🥳

Interestingly enough, I had just migrated to a new laptop and was overjoyed yesterday evening when I completed my development environment and closed my laptop for the night. I opened my laptop today to find that Insomnia has Amnesia and could not locate my data.

Needless to say...

N O T A G O O D L O O K

👎🏻 👎🏻

Robbie! It's Jeff Walter, your former colleague. Nice to see a friend ranting in the GitHub issues. 😂

[splix]

@subnetmarco ok, I see it had a tiny action called "export your data", but once I clicked "Continue" it's not available anymore. There is no way back. It's not expected that it wouldn't give an access to your previous projects if you click that.

It's a shady approach to convince users to migrate to the cloud by locking them in. You should be ashamed of doing that @subnetmarco. And obviously no one would trust Kong if they use such shady ways to manipulate people.

[jeffreydwalter]

Given the large amount of feedback, I am writing here the current situation.

What changed with Insomnia 8.0 when it comes to your data?

With Insomnia 8.0 we are doing two new things:

1. After downloading the new binary (either manually or via the auto-update) we show an onboarding wizard that communicates that your data (collections, tests, etc) will be synchronized to the cloud after the user creates an account or signs in. There is an option to export the data, and the data is not actually synchronized until either an account is being created, or a login is being performed.
2. We are also introducing a new Scratch Pad mode that is always local and never synchronized to the cloud, and doesn't require an account with Insomnia.

The data is always end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) in the cloud, therefore no-one (not even Insomnia or Kong) can access it without a valid passphrase. Which is also why losing the passphrase can lead to loss of data, it's because of E2EE.

Can Insomnia still be used for Free?

Yes, we offer a Free plan that you can use.

Why were these changes introduced?

These changes were introduced because:

1. We have a significant amount of the user base that wants to collaborate and automatically synchronize their data across their clients. This is impossible without leveraging the cloud to do so. Insomnia uses E2EE for each user, including the Free ones, to still be able to do this securely.
2. There is a significant effort in maintaining full support for an abstraction that supports two different backend (in the cloud, and locally), which is causing a large amount of issues and migration problems. We are therefore introducing limited support for the local backend storage in Scratch Pad only (more limited than the cloud one), and investing in making the cloud storage solid, stable and secure.

How to retrieve your data?

1. Your data can be retrieved in Insomnia 8.0 by exporting it via the initial onboarding wizard.
2. Your data can be retrieved by downgrading to an older version of Insomnia and exporting it.
3. Admittedly this is confusing, which is why we will be building another "Export" button in the "Preferences" and ship it as soon as possible.

Can I still use Insomnia locally only?

Yes, you can via the Scratch Pad capability which is always local and doesn't require an account. You can also export your data and re-import a collection into Scratch Pad and keep working locally.

Also with Git Sync, the data is always stored in your Git repository and never in the cloud.

Why is Insomnia making this move?

We are making this move for three reasons:

1. Roadmap: we are catering to new use-cases (collaboration, backups, synchronization, etc) that require the cloud to work and that many Insomnia users (not on this thread, obviously) are requiring.
2. Technical: we want to reduce the technical burden of having to support two backends for our storage, which has cause lots of problems in the past.
3. Business: Insomnia - whether is used locally or in the cloud - is a large project that requires significant resources to keep improving and getting better. By offering a cloud version of Insomnia, we can provide premium capabilities that can further allow us to keep this project running and active. This is not different from any other product that needs to find a way to self-sustain itself in the long term. The project also needs a lot more investments to do many of the things the community is asking, which means we need to allocate more resources, and we will. But we need a viable business to do all of these things.

What about the security of my data in the cloud?

Everything that Insomnia does is end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) also when it's stored in the cloud. Nobody can access your data without a valid passphrase, which is why when using Insomnia is important to always remember the passphrase you have selected (which used to be associated to your account password in the past).Insomnia is built by Kong, which at the time of this writing works with 600+ enterprise organizations including Top Fortune 500 and Top Global 5000 around the world, so we can cater to every requirement from every security team in the world. Just get in touch with us.

On a personal note: we are trying to do the right thing for our users, many of which want us to offer capabilities that are not possible without a cloud. I understand that many of you are very upset by this change, which is why we are still committing to offering a local-only version of Insomnia via the Scratch Pad. The amount of effort it's taking us to offer a E2EE cloud is also outrageous, but we want to do the right thing and still provide it for all of our users free of charge (that is, also Free plan users).

I apologize for not having built a more intuitive way to export/import the data, this was an oversight as we were SO excited about all the other capabilities that we have shipped that we didn't think this through well enough.

But it can still be done by:

• Downgrading to an older version of Insomnia
• Exporting the collection
• Re-importing the collection into Scratch Pad.

I hope that you will still find pleasure to use Insomnia whether it's in the cloud or locally in the Scratch Pad, but if this direction does not fit your ideas of where the project should go, then we will be sad to lose you.

Imprint into scratch pad didn't work for me.

[ineffyble]

This is incredibly short-sighted. Many organisations have migrated from Postman to Insomnia because of the Postman change, and now they're going to need to migrate again.

[subnetmarco]

I do agree that it's not clear how to export the data, so we will improve clarity by:

• Allowing to still export all data from the Scratch Pad view (so if someone misses the "export" button in the wizard, it can still be done later without having to downgrade).
• Re-enable plugins in Scratch Pad (this was an oversight, they will be enabled again).
• Making sure that import in Scratch Pad works in all scenarios (@jeffreydwalter if you have more data, please open a dedicated issue on GitHub so we can debug the problem).

This will ship son in the next v8.1, perhaps even this week (or early next week the latest). For any organization that requires strict security controls, you can get in touch with Kong/Insomnia and we will work with your security team to get the product approved even when in the cloud.

[ineffyble]

For any organization that requires strict security controls, you can get in touch with Kong/Insomnia and we will work with your security team to get the product approved even when in the cloud.

Postman offers the same, but many organisations require employees to only used cloud tooling that has been through a vendor review and procurement process, which creates a significant barrier and prevents usage in the short-term.

[subnetmarco]

@ineffyble In this case, wouldn't the Insomnia Scratch Pad be that local-only option for debugging APIs without having to use the cloud?

[erraggy]

What a week, huh @subnetmarco ?

[subnetmarco]

@erraggy Insomnia is not just a product, it's a way of life.

[ineffyble]

@ineffyble In this case, wouldn't the Insomnia Scratch Pad be that local-only option for debugging APIs without having to use the cloud?

Hopefully so, I need to take a look at it. But one concern with Postman's equivalent (the "lightweight Postman API Client") has been the risk of a user accidentally switching to cloud without realising.

[subnetmarco]

@ineffyble I believe the risk of that happening to be low because creating an account is a very explicit multi-click operation that also redirects to the browser.

[Meggoo]

LBTM, I guess I'll use the humao rest client plugin now

[jeffreydwalter]

No need. I forked the repo and will stick with the old Insomnia until and unless you guys decide to back away from your mistake. 👍 Clearly a lot of people don't want this. Cheers.

On Wed, Sep 27, 2023, 7:33 PM Marco Palladino @.***> wrote:

I do agree that it's not clear how to export the data, so we will improve clarity by:

• Allowing to still export all data from the Scratch Pad view (so if someone misses the "export" button in the wizard, it can still be done later without having to downgrade).
• Re-enable plugins in Scratch Pad (this was an oversight, they will be enabled again).
• Making sure that import in Scratch Pad works in all scenarios ( @jeffreydwalter https://github.com/jeffreydwalter if you have more data, please open a dedicated issue on GitHub so we can debug the problem).

This will ship son in the next v8.1, perhaps even this week (or early next week the latest). For any organization that requires strict security controls, you can get in touch with Kong/Insomnia and we will work with your security team to get the product approved even when in the cloud.

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/Kong/insomnia/issues/6577#issuecomment-1738281927, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEKOB3VQYMEFEZZXOZTBATX4TAXJANCNFSM6AAAAAA5J2TMWE . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.***>

[niksmac]

If you are using homebrew you can try brew install --cask https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask/a649350f567a4ade1b6ee7509d798d6b1ab3a4fb/Casks/i/insomnia.rb to install a downgraded version v2023.5.8 which does not require a login.

And I can confirm that I got all of my previous Projects back

[jdgarcia]

The collection can also be re-imported into Scratch Pad, which will keep the data of the collection forever local without requiring an account.

Insomnia should just do this automatically upon updating. Without doing so, it does make it seem like it's lost your data. And doing this after you've updated and opened Scratch Pad means you have to manually downgrade in order to get the export option again.

[subnetmarco]

@jdgarcia I agree with you. We are making a release this week to make it more clear.

[chrisj-au]

I used to be a big proponent of insomnia but this is absolute shit. Get stuffed Kong.

[CrystalSpore]

Massive L. Short term will use a Fork of Insomnia. Long term will be using a different client.

Trust forever broken by this shady & sudden change, trying to strong-arm users into having an account.

[backtozero]

It makes sense for everyone to search for alternatives. Even postman now makes sense again

[fizwidget]

I will also be migrating away from Insomina. How in earth did this update end up getting released? Absolutely mindboggling.

Introducing some extra nagging to create an account would’ve been slightly annoying but fine. Straight up locking people out of their data until they do? That is so not okay.

[Timwun]

This is really bad. Postman first, now Insomnia? I just don't want a Account...

[meiswjn]

It forces cloud synchronization like postman does

Scratch Pad is still here. It's local and doesn't require an account. You can still import your collection into Scratch Pad.

Will the scratch pad be available without an account in the future as well? Are there any gurantees regarding this?

[timharek]

There is Restfox, haven't tried it yet, but I'm going to give it a shot now: https://github.com/flawiddsouza/Restfox

[4ekki]

I was promoting Insomnia in my company for ~5 years. Good old days, :sigh:.

[ChristianSch]

Another data point: one of my devs didn't know that their data will be cloud-synced. So he accidentally leaked secrets. Great job, kong 👏 I just can't comprehend this fiasco

[CleverCoder]

same

[Aeolun]

I just don't understand how you could possibly have thought this was a good idea? What exactly did you think was the reason people used Insomnia instead of Postman? If I wanted everything could synced and shit I wouldn't have needed to migrate off Postman in the first place...