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JSON Server vs Postman: What are the differences?
JSON Server and Postman are both widely used tools in web development for different purposes. JSON Server is a simple and convenient way to create a REST API for prototyping and testing, while Postman is a powerful API testing and documentation platform.
1. Mocking and serving data: JSON Server allows you to quickly mock and serve data using a simple JSON file. It automatically creates RESTful routes for the data and supports various CRUD operations. On the other hand, Postman does not provide native mocking capabilities, as it primarily focuses on testing and documenting APIs.
2. GUI interface vs Command line interface: Postman provides a user-friendly graphical interface that allows developers to easily send HTTP requests, test APIs, and view responses. It also provides features like authentication, environment variables, and response validations. On the contrary, JSON Server is a command-line tool that requires minimal configuration and can be easily integrated into development workflows.
3. Real-time collaboration and sharing: Postman offers cloud-based features that enable real-time collaboration among team members. It allows users to share collections, collaborate on API development, and synchronize changes across multiple devices. JSON Server, being a simple command-line tool, does not offer built-in collaboration features.
4. Middleware and request/response manipulation: Postman provides a wide range of functionalities through its pre-request scripts and response scripts. These scripts allow developers to add custom logic, manipulate requests and responses, and perform complex API testing scenarios. JSON Server, being a lightweight server, does not provide the same level of built-in middleware and request/response manipulation capabilities.
5. Documentation and API testing: Postman excels in providing comprehensive documentation features that help developers create detailed and interactive API documentation. It allows the creation of well-structured documentation with rich formatting, examples, and response code snippets. JSON Server, being mainly focused on data mocking and serving, does not provide native documentation generation capabilities.
6. Testing automation and integration with CI/CD: Postman offers advanced capabilities for automating and integrating API testing with continuous integration and continuous deployment pipelines. It provides a developer-friendly interface, command-line runner, and Postman API for seamless integration into various development workflows. JSON Server, being a stand-alone tool, does not offer the same level of testing automation and CI/CD integration features.
In summary, JSON Server is a lightweight tool for quickly mocking and serving data during prototyping and testing, while Postman is a comprehensive API testing and documentation platform with rich features like real-time collaboration, request/response manipulation, and automation capabilities.
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 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.
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.
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 JSON Server
- Stupid simple7
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
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Cons of JSON Server
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