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Without sounding like every other developer who hates on electron, I would really appreciate an http client with a Gui that was lighter, like iced or slint. I

Without sounding like every other developer who hates on electron, I would really appreciate an http client with a Gui that was lighter, like iced or slint. I appreciate the versatility of electron and it giving us beautiful and usable apps but I have 16 GB of ram, I can't upgrade it and I genuinely have multi second hangs after I have 3 instances of VSCode, Firefox and Chrome open along with Bruno.

jurschreuder 2y ago
Bruno is nice because unlike postman all the calls are defined in files that you can add to the git of your project. Only thing I don't like about Bruno is that you cannot generate a documentation from your api call tests.
- Chris2048 2y ago
  Are there non-binary versions of Bruno?
  - natebc 2y ago
    https://github.com/usebruno/bruno https://github.com/usebruno/bruno has the source code. It's a node app so i guess by binary you mean a way to run it without the normal electron wrapper? You should be able to run it standalone though i've never tried it outside it's normal distribution method.
- JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y ago
  Bruno was supposed to free us from the other bad guy, then they added a subscription too. Fuck Bruno I guess.
  - _benj 2y ago
    I find this funny from people that make their living from $$ from software! Lol But apart from that Bruno is open source (MIT), you can fork it and have it anyway you want… The paid option seems just like the traditional open source model of make software free but offer enterprise support. And given that CTOs tent to want to pay for stuff (postman is terrible nowadays but is still picked and paid for) why would Bruno straight up say no to money?
    - JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y ago
      Open-source is about having the whole stuff, not restrictions on "Embed Bruno into your SDLC with deeper Git integration, automation." What I do resent is the fact that Bruno was a reaction to shitty restrictions from another application, and they did the same thing a few months/years later.
      - Letmetest 2y ago
        I'm not sure how adding a subscription is 'the same thing'. Postman forced all of your data to be stored in their cloud, and held it hostage for $1,000/user/year. Bruno seems to charge somewhere between 70-130 dollars user/year for unlocking GUI features. The same features are all accessible via the terminal or IDE.
bakugo 2y ago
> Without sounding like every other developer who hates on electron Electron is hated for very good reasons. Postman in particular is just so insanely bloated and sluggish, it's painful to use on anything that doesn't have a higher end CPU.
mootoday 2y ago
Sounds like you're looking for https://yaak.app/ https://yaak.app/.
- written-beyond 2y ago
  that's close but it uses Tauri, which maybe lighter than electron but we're still running an instance of a web browser/web view
  - arcanemachiner 2y ago
    There's a TUI application out there that might be up your alley, but I can't remember what it's called... EDIT: There's one called Posting which seems to be the most popular: https://github.com/darrenburns/posting https://github.com/darrenburns/posting
    - kellpossible2 2y ago
      https://github.com/LucasPickering/slumber https://github.com/LucasPickering/slumber is also a good TUI alternative
  - gschier 2y ago
    Yes, Tauri isn't that much different than Electron. I also bundles Node JS to power Yaak's plugin system, which makes it even more similar. I think Electron gets a bad rep mostly because big companies use it to build low quality apps.
    - klabb3 2y ago
      Tauri doesn’t bundle Chromium and Node. My app bundle is 10MB and it even bundles a sidecar binary in Go. A hello world electron bundle is 100+ MB.
      - gschier 2y ago
        Ya the bundle size is different for sure. The memory usage isn't far off though, since it's still a web app.
JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y ago
I haven't tried it but there is Posting in a TUI: https://github.com/darrenburns/posting https://github.com/darrenburns/posting
lelanthran 2y ago
> Without sounding like every other developer who hates on electron, I would really appreciate an http client with a Gui that was lighter, like iced or slint. How much would you be willing to pay for such a client? I'm not being facetious, I'd really rather like to know, because as an independent developer, every single time I suggest a native application using native widgets to a client, they choose the HTML interface rather than a Qt or similar based interface. The easily doable pretty animations in CSS in a 800MB-in-RAM-while-running application is, to paying clients, preferable than a 50MB-in-RAM-while-running that doesn't have the fancy spinning, tilting, animated wizz-bangs. I have been writing software professionally since the mid-90s; I can do you a quick GUI-based cross-platform HTTP send+receive application based on libcurl in about 2 weeks. Looking at the minimum I need to make to pay my bills, I need purchasers paying a cumulative 1000USD for this effort, so 10x buyers @ $100, or 100 buyers @ $10, and so forth. And, of course, I'd expect to only be able to sell it for a short while, if it is popular, until a clone starts up with $40k worth of SEO and advertising money. The software you want can be had, and the skill to make it exists, in a timeframe that is feasible, but the economics are just not there.
- necessary 2y ago
  This is a good business perspective, but I don’t really see why this couldn’t be someone’s open source passion project. The comment wasn’t really implying that they needed a paid tool, just a tool that suits their needs and is lightweight. Plenty of the software I use on a daily basis is open source software where you could argue that the economics shouldn’t have been there.
  - lelanthran 2y ago
    > Plenty of the software I use on a daily basis is open source software where you could argue that the economics shouldn’t have been there. Me too. But the problem with "the economics just aren't there" means that if I cannot get, just from word-of-mouth (say, a Show HN post) 100 users @ $10 once-off lifetime purchase, then this is not a product that is in demand anyway. An open-source/free product that is exactly the same would similarly receive no love from users. IOW, if not enough users exist for this product at $10, not enough users exist for this product at $0. Your passion product will still result in the dev burning out on the fact that no one wants their passion enough.
TZubiri 2y ago
I know it misses the sweetspot you are looking for, but have you tried curl?
d0mine 2y ago
uvx posting https://posting.sh https://posting.sh

jurschreuder 2y ago

Bruno is nice because unlike postman all the calls are defined in files that you can add to the git of your project. Only thing I don't like about Bruno is that you cannot generate a documentation from your api call tests.

Chris2048 2y ago
Are there non-binary versions of Bruno?
- natebc 2y ago
  https://github.com/usebruno/bruno https://github.com/usebruno/bruno has the source code. It's a node app so i guess by binary you mean a way to run it without the normal electron wrapper? You should be able to run it standalone though i've never tried it outside it's normal distribution method.
JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y ago
Bruno was supposed to free us from the other bad guy, then they added a subscription too. Fuck Bruno I guess.
- _benj 2y ago
  I find this funny from people that make their living from $$ from software! Lol But apart from that Bruno is open source (MIT), you can fork it and have it anyway you want… The paid option seems just like the traditional open source model of make software free but offer enterprise support. And given that CTOs tent to want to pay for stuff (postman is terrible nowadays but is still picked and paid for) why would Bruno straight up say no to money?
  - JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y ago
    Open-source is about having the whole stuff, not restrictions on "Embed Bruno into your SDLC with deeper Git integration, automation." What I do resent is the fact that Bruno was a reaction to shitty restrictions from another application, and they did the same thing a few months/years later.
    - Letmetest 2y ago
      I'm not sure how adding a subscription is 'the same thing'. Postman forced all of your data to be stored in their cloud, and held it hostage for $1,000/user/year. Bruno seems to charge somewhere between 70-130 dollars user/year for unlocking GUI features. The same features are all accessible via the terminal or IDE.

bakugo 2y ago

> Without sounding like every other developer who hates on electron Electron is hated for very good reasons. Postman in particular is just so insanely bloated and sluggish, it's painful to use on anything that doesn't have a higher end CPU.

mootoday 2y ago

Sounds like you're looking for https://yaak.app/ https://yaak.app/.

written-beyond 2y ago
that's close but it uses Tauri, which maybe lighter than electron but we're still running an instance of a web browser/web view
- arcanemachiner 2y ago
  There's a TUI application out there that might be up your alley, but I can't remember what it's called... EDIT: There's one called Posting which seems to be the most popular: https://github.com/darrenburns/posting https://github.com/darrenburns/posting
  - kellpossible2 2y ago
    https://github.com/LucasPickering/slumber https://github.com/LucasPickering/slumber is also a good TUI alternative
- gschier 2y ago
  Yes, Tauri isn't that much different than Electron. I also bundles Node JS to power Yaak's plugin system, which makes it even more similar. I think Electron gets a bad rep mostly because big companies use it to build low quality apps.
  - klabb3 2y ago
    Tauri doesn’t bundle Chromium and Node. My app bundle is 10MB and it even bundles a sidecar binary in Go. A hello world electron bundle is 100+ MB.
    - gschier 2y ago
      Ya the bundle size is different for sure. The memory usage isn't far off though, since it's still a web app.

JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y ago

I haven't tried it but there is Posting in a TUI: https://github.com/darrenburns/posting https://github.com/darrenburns/posting

lelanthran 2y ago

> Without sounding like every other developer who hates on electron, I would really appreciate an http client with a Gui that was lighter, like iced or slint. How much would you be willing to pay for such a client? I'm not being facetious, I'd really rather like to know, because as an independent developer, every single time I suggest a native application using native widgets to a client, they choose the HTML interface rather than a Qt or similar based interface. The easily doable pretty animations in CSS in a 800MB-in-RAM-while-running application is, to paying clients, preferable than a 50MB-in-RAM-while-running that doesn't have the fancy spinning, tilting, animated wizz-bangs. I have been writing software professionally since the mid-90s; I can do you a quick GUI-based cross-platform HTTP send+receive application based on libcurl in about 2 weeks. Looking at the minimum I need to make to pay my bills, I need purchasers paying a cumulative 1000USD for this effort, so 10x buyers @ $100, or 100 buyers @ $10, and so forth. And, of course, I'd expect to only be able to sell it for a short while, if it is popular, until a clone starts up with $40k worth of SEO and advertising money. The software you want can be had, and the skill to make it exists, in a timeframe that is feasible, but the economics are just not there.

necessary 2y ago
This is a good business perspective, but I don’t really see why this couldn’t be someone’s open source passion project. The comment wasn’t really implying that they needed a paid tool, just a tool that suits their needs and is lightweight. Plenty of the software I use on a daily basis is open source software where you could argue that the economics shouldn’t have been there.
- lelanthran 2y ago
  > Plenty of the software I use on a daily basis is open source software where you could argue that the economics shouldn’t have been there. Me too. But the problem with "the economics just aren't there" means that if I cannot get, just from word-of-mouth (say, a Show HN post) 100 users @ $10 once-off lifetime purchase, then this is not a product that is in demand anyway. An open-source/free product that is exactly the same would similarly receive no love from users. IOW, if not enough users exist for this product at $10, not enough users exist for this product at $0. Your passion product will still result in the dev burning out on the fact that no one wants their passion enough.

TZubiri 2y ago

I know it misses the sweetspot you are looking for, but have you tried curl?

d0mine 2y ago

uvx posting https://posting.sh https://posting.sh