Swagger Inspector vs Swagger UI: What are the differences?

Introduction: Here are the key differences between Swagger Inspector and Swagger UI.

1. Purpose: Swagger Inspector is an online tool for testing and validating APIs, providing a platform to quickly test endpoints without writing any code, whereas Swagger UI is a tool for visualizing and interacting with the APIs, primarily used for documenting and showcasing APIs to users.

2. Interface: Swagger Inspector has a user-friendly interface where users can make HTTP requests, view responses, and perform testing operations, while Swagger UI provides a visually appealing documentation interface where API endpoints, parameters, and response examples are displayed in a structured format.

3. Authentication: Swagger Inspector allows users to easily set up and manage authentication methods like API keys, OAuth tokens, and basic authentication, while Swagger UI focuses more on displaying the API documentation rather than managing authentication processes.

4. Real-time Testing: Swagger Inspector offers real-time testing capabilities, allowing users to send requests, view responses, and validate API endpoints instantly, whereas Swagger UI is mainly used for static documentation, providing a view-only interface for exploring APIs.

5. Dynamic Content: Swagger Inspector can generate dynamic content for API responses and provides facilities to run performance tests, input data for requests, and manipulate parameters, whereas Swagger UI focuses on presenting static content for API documentation without dynamic testing features.

6. Collaboration: Swagger Inspector supports collaboration between team members through sharing test results, test collections, and workflows, enabling team testing and feedback mechanisms, while Swagger UI lacks the built-in collaboration features and focuses more on individual API documentation needs.

In Summary, Swagger Inspector is geared towards API testing and validation with real-time capabilities, while Swagger UI is dedicated to showcasing API documentation with a visually pleasing interface.