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I have high hopes for this. Postman somehow managed to make a slow, bloated, piece-of-crap api-tester that's somehow wildly popular. Extrapolating from that, I

I have high hopes for this. Postman somehow managed to make a slow, bloated, piece-of-crap api-tester that's somehow wildly popular. Extrapolating from that, I expect this to be incredibly successful regardless of how good it is.

somehnguy 4y ago
I use Postman every single day and have very similar feelings towards it as you. Simple things that would make it exponentially more friendly to use just aren’t there, and I can’t believe they haven’t been added in the years it has existed. It updates itself occasionally but never gets any better! All that said - know of any better alternatives?
- capableweb 4y ago
  I used to be a fan of Postman (in the early beginnings of the tool), but as it added features I didn't use and became slower and slower, I got tired of it. Eventually, I figured I should try something true and tested, so I went for cURL. It takes a bit of practice and memory to learn how to do even the basics, but once it's there, it's a rock solid tool, with support for almost everything you could think of.
  - rhaway84773 4y ago
    I used to use Postman exclusively, but like you started trying curl. And then I realized curl was absolutely brilliant for my common uses because I’d write simple scripts that would mean all I needed to pass in were the arguments that changed. I took it another step further and had my script lookup a folder that had a whole bunch of different types of requests that I could then trigger with a single command. Finally, I created a version that plugged into fzf and made it super easy for me to run a whole bunch of common scripts trivially from the command line. The great thing about command line based programs is the incredible ease with which you can create repeatable series of commands that can be run both interactively or programmatically, and the UX can be tailored to suit the specific needs of what you’re trying to do.
  - dzhiurgis 4y ago
    I always get red flags when you send someone curl example and they ask for postman
- XorNot 4y ago
  jupyterlab, Python and requests. That ecosystem will do everything Postman can do, has broad support, and a much closer relationship to your actual code.
- danparsonson 4y ago
  HTTPie is a decent open source alternative: https://github.com/httpie https://github.com/httpie
- somebehemoth 4y ago
  I don’t know of a better tool. Insomnia is very good though.
- wolpoli 4y ago
  There were several other alternatives but it has been a year since I looked at it. I do recall that none of them use the same export/import format hence I never bothered moving.
- geophph 4y ago
  For barebones lightweight stuff I use the Thunderclient for VSCode extension.
- darkteflon 4y ago
  I’ve recently started using Thunder Client in VS Code and it seems … good? Sensible, lightweight. And the IDE feels like the right place for this. I haven’t used Postman that much so couldn’t comment on the comparison.
- cwdegidio 4y ago
  For MacOS, I use RapidAPI.https://paw.cloud https://paw.cloud
  - kitsunesoba 4y ago
    As do I. It's lightweight and responsive and its UI is no-nonsense and doesn't try to be branding or chase trends. It's just another tool in the toolbox and acts accordingly.
    - aPoCoMiLogin 4y ago
      well it can eat around 300mb of ram, but its still very responsive and fast, so I don't mind that, but that's not lightweight, unless postman tops that and eats much more ram, then sure, rapidapi is lightweight
- fosk 4y ago
  Check out the open source https://insomnia.rest/ https://insomnia.rest/
- Mandatum 4y ago
  Insomnia by Kong. Basically same as original Postman but less bloated and more performant.
capableweb 4y ago
Postman was a huge success because it was lightweight and had just the right amount of features. When they took the success to their head and started taking VC investment, building a API testing client was no longer enough and that's when they started putting everything and their mother into it, and they lost their moat. To date, Postman has accepted 433,000,000 USD in funding. For a API testing tool that slowly but surely expanded in scope.
- zamnos 4y ago
  $433mm sounds high but then again, Calendly's raised $350mm and 1Password's raised $920mm, so maybe that's just where things are these days. Without a view of Postman's internal roadmap, we can't say for certain what their world domination plans are, and why there's been that investment (we don't know what the valuation the $433's been bought in at either). Postman Flows is pretty clearly the low/no-code future they're betting on, and given a more advanced, developer friendly interface to a Zapier-like product (a fully managed low code PaaS offering), the bridge between a low-coder+platform fees, vs sr fullstack dev+cheaper platform, theres a comparison of total costs to be done, with lower pay for a low coder + higher platform fees ending up being less than higher pay for a sr full stack dev + lower platform fees.
  - paxys 4y ago
    > so maybe that's just where things are these days That's where things were pre-2022. Today a company of that scale asking for hundreds of millions in funding will get laughed out of the room.
duxup 4y ago
It’s really frustrating. I used to “live” in postman but it became a chunky mess… and I haven’t found a good home for quick api testing, browsing… yet.

somehnguy 4y ago

I use Postman every single day and have very similar feelings towards it as you. Simple things that would make it exponentially more friendly to use just aren’t there, and I can’t believe they haven’t been added in the years it has existed. It updates itself occasionally but never gets any better! All that said - know of any better alternatives?

capableweb 4y ago
I used to be a fan of Postman (in the early beginnings of the tool), but as it added features I didn't use and became slower and slower, I got tired of it. Eventually, I figured I should try something true and tested, so I went for cURL. It takes a bit of practice and memory to learn how to do even the basics, but once it's there, it's a rock solid tool, with support for almost everything you could think of.
- rhaway84773 4y ago
  I used to use Postman exclusively, but like you started trying curl. And then I realized curl was absolutely brilliant for my common uses because I’d write simple scripts that would mean all I needed to pass in were the arguments that changed. I took it another step further and had my script lookup a folder that had a whole bunch of different types of requests that I could then trigger with a single command. Finally, I created a version that plugged into fzf and made it super easy for me to run a whole bunch of common scripts trivially from the command line. The great thing about command line based programs is the incredible ease with which you can create repeatable series of commands that can be run both interactively or programmatically, and the UX can be tailored to suit the specific needs of what you’re trying to do.
- dzhiurgis 4y ago
  I always get red flags when you send someone curl example and they ask for postman
XorNot 4y ago
jupyterlab, Python and requests. That ecosystem will do everything Postman can do, has broad support, and a much closer relationship to your actual code.
danparsonson 4y ago
HTTPie is a decent open source alternative: https://github.com/httpie https://github.com/httpie
somebehemoth 4y ago
I don’t know of a better tool. Insomnia is very good though.
wolpoli 4y ago
There were several other alternatives but it has been a year since I looked at it. I do recall that none of them use the same export/import format hence I never bothered moving.
geophph 4y ago
For barebones lightweight stuff I use the Thunderclient for VSCode extension.
darkteflon 4y ago
I’ve recently started using Thunder Client in VS Code and it seems … good? Sensible, lightweight. And the IDE feels like the right place for this. I haven’t used Postman that much so couldn’t comment on the comparison.
cwdegidio 4y ago
For MacOS, I use RapidAPI.https://paw.cloud https://paw.cloud
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  As do I. It's lightweight and responsive and its UI is no-nonsense and doesn't try to be branding or chase trends. It's just another tool in the toolbox and acts accordingly.
  - aPoCoMiLogin 4y ago
    well it can eat around 300mb of ram, but its still very responsive and fast, so I don't mind that, but that's not lightweight, unless postman tops that and eats much more ram, then sure, rapidapi is lightweight
fosk 4y ago
Check out the open source https://insomnia.rest/ https://insomnia.rest/
Mandatum 4y ago
Insomnia by Kong. Basically same as original Postman but less bloated and more performant.

capableweb 4y ago

Postman was a huge success because it was lightweight and had just the right amount of features. When they took the success to their head and started taking VC investment, building a API testing client was no longer enough and that's when they started putting everything and their mother into it, and they lost their moat. To date, Postman has accepted 433,000,000 USD in funding. For a API testing tool that slowly but surely expanded in scope.

zamnos 4y ago
$433mm sounds high but then again, Calendly's raised $350mm and 1Password's raised $920mm, so maybe that's just where things are these days. Without a view of Postman's internal roadmap, we can't say for certain what their world domination plans are, and why there's been that investment (we don't know what the valuation the $433's been bought in at either). Postman Flows is pretty clearly the low/no-code future they're betting on, and given a more advanced, developer friendly interface to a Zapier-like product (a fully managed low code PaaS offering), the bridge between a low-coder+platform fees, vs sr fullstack dev+cheaper platform, theres a comparison of total costs to be done, with lower pay for a low coder + higher platform fees ending up being less than higher pay for a sr full stack dev + lower platform fees.
- paxys 4y ago
  > so maybe that's just where things are these days That's where things were pre-2022. Today a company of that scale asking for hundreds of millions in funding will get laughed out of the room.

duxup 4y ago

It’s really frustrating. I used to “live” in postman but it became a chunky mess… and I haven’t found a good home for quick api testing, browsing… yet.