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Apiary vs Postman vs ReadMe.io: What are the differences?
# Introduction
Key differences between Apiary, Postman, and ReadMe.io are crucial to understanding the unique features and purposes of these API documentation tools.
1. **API Blueprint vs Collection**: Apiary focuses on API Blueprint, a text-based format for API design, while Postman uses Collections for organizing and testing APIs, and ReadMe.io offers a combination of both in a user-friendly interface.
2. **Collaboration Features**: Apiary provides robust collaboration features for teams to work on API design and documentation simultaneously, while Postman and ReadMe.io also support collaboration but in slightly different ways, with Postman focusing more on API testing and ReadMe.io on developer portals.
3. **Mocking and Testing Capabilities**: Postman stands out for its comprehensive API testing and mocking capabilities, allowing users to create and run automated tests easily, while Apiary and ReadMe.io offer basic testing features but with less flexibility compared to Postman.
4. **Customization Options**: ReadMe.io offers extensive customization options for creating developer portals with a unique look and feel, while Postman and Apiary have limited customization features focused more on API documentation and testing functionalities.
5. **Pricing and Plans**: Postman offers a freemium model with powerful free features and paid plans for advanced users, while Apiary has a more limited free tier with pricing based on usage, and ReadMe.io provides custom pricing based on specific needs, making it suitable for larger enterprise projects.
6. **Focus on Developer Experience**: ReadMe.io emphasizes enhancing the developer experience through features like interactive API consoles and SDK generation, while Apiary and Postman focus more on API design, testing, and documentation aspects.
In Summary, understanding the key differences between Apiary, Postman, and ReadMe.io can help users choose the right tool based on their specific needs for API design, testing, and documentation.
Advice on Apiary, Postman, and ReadMe.io
StackShare Editors
From a StackShare Community member: "I just started working for a start-up and we are in desperate need of better documentation for our API. Currently our API docs is in a README.md file. We are evaluating Postman and Swagger UI. Since there are many options and I was wondering what other StackSharers would recommend?"
Replies (3)
Jagdeep Singh
Tech Lead at ucreate.it · | 8 upvotes · 389.3K views
I use Postman because of the ease of team-management, using workspaces and teams, runner, collections, environment variables, test-scripts (post execution), variable management (pre and post execution), folders (inside collections, for better management of APIs), newman, easy-ci-integration (and probably a few more things that I am not able to recall right now).
Jadenko
I use Swagger UI because it's an easy tool for end-consumers to visualize and test our APIs. It focuses on that ! And it's directly embedded and delivered with the APIs. Postman's built-in tools aren't bad, but their main focus isn't the documentation and also, they are hosted outside the project.
Sadik Ay
Backend Engineer · | 2 upvotes · 360.3K views
I recommend Postman because it's easy to use with history option. Also, it has very great features like runner, collections, test scripts runners, defining environment variables and simple exporting and importing data.
Decisions about Apiary, Postman, and ReadMe.io
Stephen Fox
Artificial Intelligence Fellow · | 1 upvote · 343.5K views
Postman supports automation and organization in a way that Insomnia just doesn't. Admittedly, Insomnia makes it slightly easy to query the data that you get back (in a very MongoDB-esque query language) but Postman sets you up to develop the code that you would use in development/testing right in the editor.
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Learn MorePros of Apiary
Pros of Postman
Pros of ReadMe.io
Pros of Apiary
- Easy to use29
- Free to use19
- Traffic inspector12
- Free11
- Collaboration10
- Mock API7
- Dashboard4
- Customization3
- 30 Days Trial2
- Access Control2
- Documentation2
- Validate API Documentation2
- API explorer1
- Clean syntax1
- Provisioning1
- Shared API blueprint templates1
- Github integration helps with collaboration1
- Code auto-generation1
Pros of Postman
- Easy to use490
- Great tool369
- Makes developing rest api's easy peasy276
- Easy setup, looks good156
- The best api workflow out there144
- It's the best53
- History feature53
- Adds real value to my workflow44
- Great interface that magically predicts your needs43
- The best in class app35
- Can save and share script12
- Fully featured without looking cluttered10
- Collections8
- Option to run scrips8
- Global/Environment Variables8
- Shareable Collections7
- Dead simple and useful. Excellent7
- Dark theme easy on the eyes7
- Awesome customer support6
- Great integration with newman6
- Documentation5
- Simple5
- The test script is useful5
- Saves responses4
- This has simplified my testing significantly4
- Makes testing API's as easy as 1,2,34
- Easy as pie4
- API-network3
- I'd recommend it to everyone who works with apis3
- Mocking API calls with predefined response3
- Now supports GraphQL2
- Postman Runner CI Integration2
- Easy to setup, test and provides test storage2
- Continuous integration using newman2
- Pre-request Script and Test attributes are invaluable2
- Runner2
- Graph2
- <a href="http://fixbit.com/">useful tool</a>1
Pros of ReadMe.io
- Great UI18
- Easy15
- Customizable10
- Cute mascot10
- Looks great and is fun to use8
- It's friggin awesome5
- Make sample API calls inside the docs3
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Cons of Apiary
Cons of Postman
Cons of ReadMe.io
Cons of Apiary
Be the first to leave a con
Cons of Postman
- Stores credentials in HTTP10
- Bloated features and UI9
- Cumbersome to switch authentication tokens8
- Poor GraphQL support7
- Expensive5
- Not free after 5 users3
- Can't prompt for per-request variables3
- Import swagger1
- Support websocket1
- Import curl1
Cons of ReadMe.io
- Support is awful4
- No backup and restore capability3
- Important parts of the CSS are locked2
- Document structure is severely restricted2
- Full of bugs2
- No notifications of edits by other users2
- Supports only two documents plus a blog1
- Does not support pre-request scripts1
- Random pages display content of other pages instead1
- Review and comment functionality is hard to work with1
- Navigation in user-facing copy is spotty1
- All admins have full editing rights1
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What is Apiary?
It takes more than a simple HTML page to thrill your API users. The right tools take weeks of development. Weeks that apiary.io saves.
What is Postman?
It is the only complete API development environment, used by nearly five million developers and more than 100,000 companies worldwide.
What is ReadMe.io?
It is an easy-to-use tool to help you build out documentation! Each documentation site that you publish is a project where there is space for documentation, interactive API reference guides, a changelog, and much more.
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What tools integrate with Apiary?
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