Alternatives to Postman logo

Alternatives to Postman

Swagger UI, Insomnia REST Client, Paw, Apigee, and cURL are the most popular alternatives and competitors to Postman.
91.7K
78.5K
+ 1
1.8K

What is Postman and what are its top alternatives?

It is the only complete API development environment, used by nearly five million developers and more than 100,000 companies worldwide.
Postman is a tool in the API Tools category of a tech stack.

Top Alternatives to Postman

  • Swagger UI
    Swagger UI

    Swagger UI is a dependency-free collection of HTML, Javascript, and CSS assets that dynamically generate beautiful documentation and sandbox from a Swagger-compliant API ...

  • Insomnia REST Client
    Insomnia REST Client

    Insomnia is a powerful REST API Client with cookie management, environment variables, code generation, and authentication for Mac, Window, and Linux. ...

  • Paw
    Paw

    Paw is a full-featured and beautifully designed Mac app that makes interaction with REST services delightful. Either you are an API maker or consumer, Paw helps you build HTTP requests, inspect the server's response and even generate client code. ...

  • Apigee
    Apigee

    API management, design, analytics, and security are at the heart of modern digital architecture. The Apigee intelligent API platform is a complete solution for moving business to the digital world. ...

  • cURL
    cURL

    Used in command lines or scripts to transfer data. It is also used in cars, television sets, routers, printers, audio equipment, mobile phones, tablets, and is the internet transfer backbone for thousands of software applications affecting billions of humans daily. ...

  • Fiddler
    Fiddler

    It is a free web debugging proxy for any browser, system or platform. It helps you debug web applications by capturing network traffic between the Internet and test computers. The tool enables you to inspect incoming and outgoing data to monitor and modify requests and responses before the browser receives them. ...

  • Postwoman
    Postwoman

    It is a free, fast, and beautiful alternative to Postman. It helps you create your requests faster, saving you precious time on your development. ...

  • RestSharp
    RestSharp

    It is probably the most popular HTTP client library for .NET. Featuring automatic serialization and deserialization, request and response type detection, variety of authentications and other useful features ...

Postman alternatives & related posts

Swagger UI logo

Swagger UI

1.9K
1.7K
207
A Collection of HTML, Javascript, and CSS assets that dynamically generate beautiful documentation
1.9K
1.7K
+ 1
207
PROS OF SWAGGER UI
  • 49
    Open Source
  • 34
    Can execute api calls from the documentation
  • 29
    Free to use
  • 19
    Customizable
  • 14
    Easy to implement in .Net
  • 13
    Mature, clean spec
  • 12
    API Visualization
  • 9
    Coverage
  • 6
    Scaffolding
  • 6
    Easy to use
  • 5
    Vibrant and active community
  • 4
    Elegant
  • 3
    Adopted by tm forum api
  • 2
    Clear for React
  • 1
    Api
  • 1
    Can deploy API to AWS API Gateway and AWS Lambda
CONS OF SWAGGER UI
  • 3
    Need to learn YAML and RAML
  • 2
    Documentation doesn't look that good
  • 1
    Doesn't generate code snippets in different languages
  • 1
    You don’t actually get in-line error highlighting
  • 1
    Does not support hypermedia

related Swagger UI posts

Noah Zoschke
Engineering Manager at Segment · | 30 upvotes · 2.7M views

We just launched the Segment Config API (try it out for yourself here) — a set of public REST APIs that enable you to manage your Segment configuration. A public API is only as good as its #documentation. For the API reference doc we are using Postman.

Postman is an “API development environment”. You download the desktop app, and build API requests by URL and payload. Over time you can build up a set of requests and organize them into a “Postman Collection”. You can generalize a collection with “collection variables”. This allows you to parameterize things like username, password and workspace_name so a user can fill their own values in before making an API call. This makes it possible to use Postman for one-off API tasks instead of writing code.

Then you can add Markdown content to the entire collection, a folder of related methods, and/or every API method to explain how the APIs work. You can publish a collection and easily share it with a URL.

This turns Postman from a personal #API utility to full-blown public interactive API documentation. The result is a great looking web page with all the API calls, docs and sample requests and responses in one place. Check out the results here.

Postman’s powers don’t end here. You can automate Postman with “test scripts” and have it periodically run a collection scripts as “monitors”. We now have #QA around all the APIs in public docs to make sure they are always correct

Along the way we tried other techniques for documenting APIs like ReadMe.io or Swagger UI. These required a lot of effort to customize.

Writing and maintaining a Postman collection takes some work, but the resulting documentation site, interactivity and API testing tools are well worth it.

See more
Simon Reymann
Senior Fullstack Developer at QUANTUSflow Software GmbH · | 27 upvotes · 4.6M views

Our whole Node.js backend stack consists of the following tools:

  • Lerna as a tool for multi package and multi repository management
  • npm as package manager
  • NestJS as Node.js framework
  • TypeScript as programming language
  • ExpressJS as web server
  • Swagger UI for visualizing and interacting with the API’s resources
  • Postman as a tool for API development
  • TypeORM as object relational mapping layer
  • JSON Web Token for access token management

The main reason we have chosen Node.js over PHP is related to the following artifacts:

  • Made for the web and widely in use: Node.js is a software platform for developing server-side network services. Well-known projects that rely on Node.js include the blogging software Ghost, the project management tool Trello and the operating system WebOS. Node.js requires the JavaScript runtime environment V8, which was specially developed by Google for the popular Chrome browser. This guarantees a very resource-saving architecture, which qualifies Node.js especially for the operation of a web server. Ryan Dahl, the developer of Node.js, released the first stable version on May 27, 2009. He developed Node.js out of dissatisfaction with the possibilities that JavaScript offered at the time. The basic functionality of Node.js has been mapped with JavaScript since the first version, which can be expanded with a large number of different modules. The current package managers (npm or Yarn) for Node.js know more than 1,000,000 of these modules.
  • Fast server-side solutions: Node.js adopts the JavaScript "event-loop" to create non-blocking I/O applications that conveniently serve simultaneous events. With the standard available asynchronous processing within JavaScript/TypeScript, highly scalable, server-side solutions can be realized. The efficient use of the CPU and the RAM is maximized and more simultaneous requests can be processed than with conventional multi-thread servers.
  • A language along the entire stack: Widely used frameworks such as React or AngularJS or Vue.js, which we prefer, are written in JavaScript/TypeScript. If Node.js is now used on the server side, you can use all the advantages of a uniform script language throughout the entire application development. The same language in the back- and frontend simplifies the maintenance of the application and also the coordination within the development team.
  • Flexibility: Node.js sets very few strict dependencies, rules and guidelines and thus grants a high degree of flexibility in application development. There are no strict conventions so that the appropriate architecture, design structures, modules and features can be freely selected for the development.
See more
Insomnia REST Client logo

Insomnia REST Client

773
640
44
The most intuitive cross-platform REST API Client 😴
773
640
+ 1
44
PROS OF INSOMNIA REST CLIENT
  • 16
    Easy to work with
  • 11
    Great user interface
  • 6
    Works with GraphQL
  • 4
    Cross platform, available for Mac, Windows, and Linux
  • 3
    Opensource
  • 2
    Vim and Emacs key map
  • 2
    Preserves request templates
  • 0
    Does not have history feature
CONS OF INSOMNIA REST CLIENT
  • 4
    Do not have team sharing options
  • 2
    Do not store credentials in HTTP

related Insomnia REST Client posts

Jason Barry
Cofounder at FeaturePeek · | 4 upvotes · 2.3M views

We've tried a couple REST clients over the years, and Insomnia REST Client has won us over the most. Here's what we like about it compared to other contenders in this category:

  • Uncluttered UI. Things are only in your face when you need them, and the app is visually organized in an intuitive manner.
  • Native Mac app. We wanted the look and feel to be on par with other apps in our OS rather than a web app / Electron app (cough Postman).
  • Easy team sync. Other apps have this too, but Insomnia's model best sets the "set and forget" mentality. Syncs are near instant and I'm always assured that I'm working on the latest version of API endpoints. Apps like Paw use a git-based approach to revision history, but I think this actually over-complicates the sync feature. For ensuring I'm always working on the latest version of something, I'd rather have the sync model be closer to Dropbox's than git's, and Insomnia is closer to Dropbox in that regard.

Some features like automatic public-facing documentation aren't supported, but we currently don't have any public APIs, so this didn't matter to us.

See more
Paw logo

Paw

228
276
164
The ultimate REST client for Mac
228
276
+ 1
164
PROS OF PAW
  • 46
    Great interface
  • 37
    Easy to use
  • 25
    More stable and performant than the others
  • 16
    Saves endpoints list for testing
  • 13
    Supports environment variables
  • 12
    Integrations
  • 9
    Multi-Dimension Environment Settings
  • 4
    Paste curl commands into Paw
  • 2
    Creates code for any language or framework
CONS OF PAW
  • 3
    It's not free
  • 2
    MacOS Only

related Paw posts

Jason Barry
Cofounder at FeaturePeek · | 4 upvotes · 2.3M views

We've tried a couple REST clients over the years, and Insomnia REST Client has won us over the most. Here's what we like about it compared to other contenders in this category:

  • Uncluttered UI. Things are only in your face when you need them, and the app is visually organized in an intuitive manner.
  • Native Mac app. We wanted the look and feel to be on par with other apps in our OS rather than a web app / Electron app (cough Postman).
  • Easy team sync. Other apps have this too, but Insomnia's model best sets the "set and forget" mentality. Syncs are near instant and I'm always assured that I'm working on the latest version of API endpoints. Apps like Paw use a git-based approach to revision history, but I think this actually over-complicates the sync feature. For ensuring I'm always working on the latest version of something, I'd rather have the sync model be closer to Dropbox's than git's, and Insomnia is closer to Dropbox in that regard.

Some features like automatic public-facing documentation aren't supported, but we currently don't have any public APIs, so this didn't matter to us.

See more
Apigee logo

Apigee

233
685
29
Intelligent and complete API platform
233
685
+ 1
29
PROS OF APIGEE
  • 12
    Highly scalable and secure API Management Platform
  • 6
    Quick jumpstart
  • 5
    Good documentation
  • 3
    Fast and adjustable caching
  • 3
    Easy to use
CONS OF APIGEE
  • 11
    Expensive
  • 1
    Doesn't support hybrid natively

related Apigee posts

cURL logo

cURL

316
242
1
Command Line Tool and Library for Transferring Data With URLs
316
242
+ 1
1
PROS OF CURL
  • 1
    Quickly view HTTP headers
CONS OF CURL
    Be the first to leave a con

    related cURL posts

    Fiddler logo

    Fiddler

    109
    122
    0
    A free web debugging tool
    109
    122
    + 1
    0
    PROS OF FIDDLER
      Be the first to leave a pro
      CONS OF FIDDLER
        Be the first to leave a con

        related Fiddler posts

        Postwoman logo

        Postwoman

        57
        153
        9
        API request builder - A free and fast alternative to Postman
        57
        153
        + 1
        9
        PROS OF POSTWOMAN
        • 9
          Brings some much needed gender balance
        CONS OF POSTWOMAN
          Be the first to leave a con

          related Postwoman posts

          RestSharp logo

          RestSharp

          741
          36
          0
          Simple REST and HTTP API Client for .NET
          741
          36
          + 1
          0
          PROS OF RESTSHARP
            Be the first to leave a pro
            CONS OF RESTSHARP
              Be the first to leave a con

              related RestSharp posts