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Postman vs Postmen: What are the differences?
Introduction
In this article, we will examine the key differences between Postman and Postmen, two popular API development and testing tools.
Pricing Model: The first notable difference between Postman and Postmen is their pricing models. Postman follows a freemium model, offering a free version with limited features alongside paid plans. On the other hand, Postmen uses a subscription-based pricing model, where users need to pay a monthly or annual fee based on their usage and required features.
Bulk API Testing: Postman allows users to test APIs one by one or in smaller collections. However, it does not offer built-in support for bulk API testing. In contrast, Postmen provides a dedicated feature for bulk API testing, enabling users to simultaneously test multiple APIs in an organized manner, saving time and effort.
Customizable API Dashboard: Postman provides a customizable API dashboard where users can organize, categorize, and manage their APIs. Users can create folders, add descriptions, and set up environments. On the other hand, Postmen does not offer this level of customization for the API dashboard. While users can still manage APIs in Postmen, the options for organization and customization are more limited compared to Postman.
Integration Capabilities: Postman offers a wide range of integrations and partnerships with other platforms and services. Users can integrate their APIs with tools like Slack, GitHub, Jira, and more, enhancing the development and testing workflow. Postmen, in comparison, has fewer integrations available. While it supports some popular platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce, the integration options are relatively limited.
Team Collaboration Features: Postman offers advanced team collaboration features, allowing team members to work together on the same API collection, share environments, and collaborate on the API development and testing process. Postmen, however, lacks similar extensive team collaboration capabilities. While users can share access to their Postmen account with team members, the collaborative features are not as comprehensive as those offered by Postman.
Advanced Error Handling: Postman provides robust error handling capabilities, allowing users to handle and analyze the errors returned by APIs efficiently. It offers features like error logging, debugging tools, and customizable error responses. Postmen, on the other hand, does not have the same level of advanced error handling features. While it does provide error reporting, the options for customization and analysis are more limited.
In summary, Postman offers a freemium pricing model, allows individual and smaller collection API testing, provides a customizable API dashboard, offers extensive integration capabilities, supports advanced team collaboration features, and provides advanced error handling abilities. In contrast, Postmen follows a subscription-based pricing model, supports bulk API testing, has limited customization options for the API dashboard, offers fewer integrations, lacks extensive team collaboration features, and provides less advanced error handling 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 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 Postmen
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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