Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!
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?"
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).
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.
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.
Istio based on powerful Envoy whereas Kong based on Nginx. Istio is K8S native as well it's actively developed when k8s was successfully accepted with production-ready apps whereas Kong slowly migrated to start leveraging K8s. Istio has an inbuilt turn-keyIstio based on powerful Envoy whereas Kong based on Nginx. Istio is K8S native as well it's actively developed when k8s was successfully accepted with production-ready apps whereas Kong slowly migrated to start leveraging K8s. Istio has an inbuilt turn key solution with Rancher whereas Kong completely lacks here. Traffic distribution in Istio can be done via canary, a/b, shadowing, HTTP headers, ACL, whitelist whereas in Kong it's limited to canary, ACL, blue-green, proxy caching. Istio has amazing community support which is visible via Github stars or releases when comparing both.
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.
Pros of Kong
- Easy to maintain37
- Easy to install32
- Flexible25
- Great performance20
- Api blueprint5
- Custom Plugins4
- Kubernetes-native3
- Security2
- Agnostic2
- Has a good plugin infrastructure2
- Documentation is clear1
- Very customizable1
- Load balancing1
Pros of Postman
- Easy to use489
- Great tool369
- Makes developing rest api's easy peasy276
- Easy setup, looks good156
- The best api workflow out there144
- History feature53
- It's the best53
- 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
- Global/Environment Variables8
- Collections8
- Option to run scrips8
- Shareable Collections7
- Dead simple and useful. Excellent7
- Dark theme easy on the eyes7
- Great integration with newman6
- Awesome customer support6
- Simple5
- The test script is useful5
- Documentation5
- Saves responses4
- Easy as pie4
- Makes testing API's as easy as 1,2,34
- This has simplified my testing significantly4
- API-network3
- Mocking API calls with predefined response3
- I'd recommend it to everyone who works with apis3
- Runner2
- Easy to setup, test and provides test storage2
- Postman Runner CI Integration2
- Graph2
- Now supports GraphQL2
- Continuous integration using newman2
- Pre-request Script and Test attributes are invaluable2
- <a href="http://fixbit.com/">useful tool</a>1
Pros of Runscope
- Great features17
- Easy to use15
- Nicely priced4
- Free plan4
- No install needed - runs on cloud2
- Decent2
- Collections1
- Dead simple and useful. Excellent1
- Awesome customer support1
- Import scripts from sources including Postman1
- Shareable Collections1
- Global & Collection level variables1
- Graphical view of response times historically1
- Integrations - StatusPage, PagerDuty, HipChat, Victorop1
- Run tests from multiple locations across globe1
- Schedule test collections to auto-run at intervals1
- Auto Re-run failed scheduled tests before notifying1
- Makes developing REST APIs easy1
- History feature - call history and response history1
- Restrict access by teams1
- Fully featured without looking cluttered1
- Can save and share scripts1
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Cons of Kong
Cons of Postman
- Stores credentials in HTTP10
- Bloated features and UI9
- Cumbersome to switch authentication tokens8
- Poor GraphQL support7
- Expensive5
- Can't prompt for per-request variables3
- Not free after 5 users3
- Import swagger1
- Support websocket1
- Import curl1