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HTTP Toolkit vs Postman: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this article, we will explore the key differences between HTTP Toolkit and Postman. Both of these tools are used for testing APIs and analyzing HTTP traffic, but they have some significant differences in terms of functionality and features.

  1. Pricing Model: One of the main differences between HTTP Toolkit and Postman is their pricing models. HTTP Toolkit offers a free plan with limited features, as well as paid plans with additional features for individuals and teams. On the other hand, Postman offers a free plan for individuals, but also has paid plans that offer more advanced features, collaboration tools, and additional support.

  2. User Interface: Both HTTP Toolkit and Postman have user-friendly interfaces, but they differ in terms of layout and design. HTTP Toolkit focuses on simplicity and minimalism, providing a clean and intuitive interface that is easy to navigate. Postman, on the other hand, offers a more comprehensive and feature-rich UI with a wide range of tabs, panels, and options for managing and testing APIs.

  3. Middleware and Proxying: HTTP Toolkit and Postman have different approaches when it comes to middleware and proxying. HTTP Toolkit offers built-in support for intercepting and modifying HTTP requests and responses using middleware functions, making it easy to debug and modify API requests. Postman, on the other hand, provides a proxy feature that allows users to capture and inspect HTTP traffic, but it doesn't offer the same level of flexibility and control as HTTP Toolkit's middleware functionality.

  4. API Documentation: Another key difference between HTTP Toolkit and Postman is their approach to API documentation. HTTP Toolkit provides a built-in documentation feature that allows users to document their APIs and share them with others. This feature makes it easy to create detailed API documentation with examples and descriptions. Postman, on the other hand, offers a separate API documentation platform called Postman Docs, which provides more advanced features for documentation, including automatic generation of documentation from API requests and responses.

  5. Collaboration and Team Management: HTTP Toolkit and Postman differ in terms of collaboration and team management features. Postman offers advanced features for collaboration, allowing users to share and collaborate on API projects with their team members. It provides features like team workspaces, role-based access control, and a built-in collaboration platform. HTTP Toolkit, on the other hand, does not offer the same level of collaboration features and is more focused on individual developers.

  6. Supported Platforms: HTTP Toolkit and Postman also differ in terms of the platforms they support. Postman offers desktop applications for Windows, macOS, and Linux, as well as a web version that can be accessed from any modern browser. HTTP Toolkit, on the other hand, currently only supports desktop applications for Windows and macOS, with no official support for Linux or web-based access.

In Summary, HTTP Toolkit and Postman differ in terms of pricing models, user interface, middleware and proxying capabilities, API documentation features, collaboration and team management options, and supported platforms.

Advice on HTTP Toolkit and Postman
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Swagger UISwagger UI

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?"

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Replies (3)
Jagdeep Singh
Tech Lead at ucreate.it · | 8 upvotes · 374.1K 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).

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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.

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Sadik Ay
Recommends
on
PostmanPostman

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.

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Decisions about HTTP Toolkit and Postman
Stephen Fox
Artificial Intelligence Fellow · | 1 upvote · 331.1K 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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Pros of HTTP Toolkit
Pros of Postman
    Be the first to leave a pro
    • 490
      Easy to use
    • 369
      Great tool
    • 276
      Makes developing rest api's easy peasy
    • 156
      Easy setup, looks good
    • 144
      The best api workflow out there
    • 53
      It's the best
    • 53
      History feature
    • 44
      Adds real value to my workflow
    • 43
      Great interface that magically predicts your needs
    • 35
      The best in class app
    • 12
      Can save and share script
    • 10
      Fully featured without looking cluttered
    • 8
      Collections
    • 8
      Option to run scrips
    • 8
      Global/Environment Variables
    • 7
      Shareable Collections
    • 7
      Dead simple and useful. Excellent
    • 7
      Dark theme easy on the eyes
    • 6
      Awesome customer support
    • 6
      Great integration with newman
    • 5
      Documentation
    • 5
      Simple
    • 5
      The test script is useful
    • 4
      Saves responses
    • 4
      This has simplified my testing significantly
    • 4
      Makes testing API's as easy as 1,2,3
    • 4
      Easy as pie
    • 3
      API-network
    • 3
      I'd recommend it to everyone who works with apis
    • 3
      Mocking API calls with predefined response
    • 2
      Now supports GraphQL
    • 2
      Postman Runner CI Integration
    • 2
      Easy to setup, test and provides test storage
    • 2
      Continuous integration using newman
    • 2
      Pre-request Script and Test attributes are invaluable
    • 2
      Runner
    • 2
      Graph
    • 1
      <a href="http://fixbit.com/">useful tool</a>

    Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

    Cons of HTTP Toolkit
    Cons of Postman
      Be the first to leave a con
      • 10
        Stores credentials in HTTP
      • 9
        Bloated features and UI
      • 8
        Cumbersome to switch authentication tokens
      • 7
        Poor GraphQL support
      • 5
        Expensive
      • 3
        Not free after 5 users
      • 3
        Can't prompt for per-request variables
      • 1
        Import swagger
      • 1
        Support websocket
      • 1
        Import curl

      Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

      What is HTTP Toolkit?

      HTTP Toolkit is a tool for testing, debugging & developing with HTTP and HTTPS. With one click you can start an application, browser, terminal or mobile app, immediately capture all its HTTP(S) traffic, and inspect, rewrite & mock it.

      What is Postman?

      It is the only complete API development environment, used by nearly five million developers and more than 100,000 companies worldwide.

      Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

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      What companies use Postman?
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        What tools integrate with HTTP Toolkit?
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        What are some alternatives to HTTP Toolkit and Postman?
        Insomnia REST Client
        Insomnia is a powerful REST API Client with cookie management, environment variables, code generation, and authentication for Mac, Window, and Linux.
        OpenAPI
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        Retrofit
        Retrofit turns your HTTP API into a Java interface
        OpenAPI Specification
        It defines a standard, language-agnostic interface to RESTful APIs which allows both humans and computers to discover and understand the capabilities of the service without access to source code, documentation, or through network traffic inspection.
        Apigee
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