Blog / GraphQL

Top 10 GraphQL clients

GraphQL is one of the hottest topics in the API development world, and that's for good reasons: GraphQL APIs address many of the issues that we had with Restful and SOAP APIs. This article goes through the Top 10 GraphQL clients you can use today to develop and use GraphQL API.

Written byMatt
Published OnSun Jan 23 2022
Last UpdatedSun Jan 23 2022

GraphQL is one of the hottest topics in the API development world, and that’s for good reasons: GraphQL APIs address many of the issues that we had with Restful and SOAP APIs.

This article goes through the best GraphQL clients you can use today to develop and use GraphQL API.

Table of Contents

Tl;dr


Area of AssessmentUI & UXAPI TestingAPI MonitoringGraphQL client
Testfully.io⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Postman⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Insomnia⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐-⭐⭐⭐⭐
GraphiQL⭐⭐--⭐⭐⭐
Altair⭐⭐⭐⭐--⭐⭐⭐⭐
Hoppscotch⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐-⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
TestMace⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐-⭐⭐
Apollo Studio Sandbox Explorer⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐--⭐⭐
GraphQL Playground⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐--⭐⭐⭐
Firecamp⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐-⭐⭐

Testfully

Website: Testfully.io | Pricing: Free, Paid plans start from $49 a month.

Testfully is a fully-fledged API testing and monitoring platform. Leverage Testfully to send requests to your GraphQL API and automate your GraphQL API testing & monitoring using a set of rich features.

Hassle-free GraphQL API testing & monitoring is what Testfully offers.

Testfully is a hassle-free GraphQL API testing & monitoring platform.

Testfully pros

Testfully cons

Insomnia

Website: insomnia.rest | Pricing: Free, Paid plans start from $50 a year/ Individual.

Insomnia (part of Kong) is an open-source API client (Windows, Mac, and Linux) with a set of features to help you test your GraphQL APIs. If you’re familiar with Postman, you should feel at home when using Insomnia.

Insomnia is a fast & reliable API client with GraphQL support. In addition, Insomnia’s Restful API features are also available for GraphQL APIs.

Insomnia, a well-known API client that supports GraphQL as well

Insomnia pros

Insomnia cons

Postman

Website: postman.com | Pricing: Free, Paid plans start from $12 a month/ per user.

Postman is a powerful API client that supports GraphQL. As a result, many of Postman’s features for Restful APIs are also available to GraphQL counterparts. That said, Postman does not offer many exclusive features for GraphQL APIs. If you’re a Postman user, we highly recommend reading our Postman alternatives article for some great options for Postman.

Postman is a great Restful API client, but Postman’s GraphQL support is behind other tools in this space.

Postman, de-facto of API clients with average support for GraphQL APIs

Postman pros

Postman cons

GraphiQL

Website: electronjs.org/apps/graphiql | Pricing: Free & Open-source.

GraphiQL is an open-source GraphQL client from the core GraphQL team; it was the first released GraphQL client after the original release of GraphQL specification.

The GraphiQL IDE is the desktop version of GraphiQL, which is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. GraphiQL does a decent job of sending GraphiQL queries and exploring the schema of any GraphQL API.

GraphiQL is a good option for personal projects that need essential features.

GraphiQL: First-ever GraphQL client with basic features

GraphiQL pros

GraphiQL cons

Altair

Website: altair.sirmuel.design | Pricing: Free & Open-source.

Altair is a beautiful, feature-rich free & open-source GraphQL client for all platforms (Desktop and Browser) that allows you to create and execute queries against the GraphQL APIs.

Even if you’re not planning to use Altair, keep an eye on it. Great project with a bright future.

Altair, a powerful free & open-source GraphQL client

Altair pros

Altair cons

Hoppscotch

Website: hoppscotch.io | Pricing: Free & open-source.

Hoppscotch is another free & open-source API client with a dedicated UI for GraphQL APIs. You can write GraphQL queries effortlessly with the auto-completion and highlighted syntax editor and save them in a collection and folders to be organized.

Hoppscotch is a fantastic API client with great GraphQL support. Team collaboration makes an ideal choice for software teams.

Hoppscotch is a powerful free & open-source API client with excellent support for GraphQL APIs.

Hoppscotch pros

Hoppscotch cons

TestMace

Website: testmace.com | Pricing: Free, Paid plans start from $4 a month/ per user.

TestMace is another cross-platform and modern API client that supports GraphQL with a fluent and dedicated Interface. Similar to Testfully, you can leverage TestMace for GraphQL API testing as well.

TestMace is a good option for automated GraphQL API testing.

TestMace is a good API client with support for GraphQL APIs.

TestMace pros

TestMace cons

Apollo Studio Sandbox Explorer

Website: studio.apollographql.com/sandbox/explorer | Pricing: Free.

Apollo Studio Sandbox Explorer is a version of the Apollo Studio Explorer that doesn’t need an account, and it’s free but doesn’t include some features like schema history.

Sandbox Explorer is a great way to quickly explore any GraphQL API in the browser. However, as a GraphQL client, this article has better options.

Please remember that Sandbox Explorer is a GraphQL API Explorer. It fetches the schema automatically, So you can create GraphQL queries easily with the built-in schema explorer and run them against your chosen environment.

Apollo Studio Sandbox is an in-browser GraphQL API explorer.

Apollo Studio Sandbox pros

Apollo Studio Sandbox cons

GraphQL Playground

Did you know that many GraphQL API deployments offer a web-based client out of the box as well? GraphQL playgrounds are often available via /graphql or /playground URLs. Please check The Rick & Morty GraphQL API playground for a working example.

GraphQL Playground is a built-in tool for most GraphQL APIs.

GraphQL Playground pros

Apollo Studio Sandbox cons

FireCamp

Website: firecamp.io | Pricing: basic plan Free, Paid pro plan $7 a month.

FireCamp is a powerful cross-platform API testing tool that offers the GraphQL client and other dedicated GUI features to test your APIs.

FireCamp helps even a rookie write GraphQL queries and leverage GraphQL explorer to test an API.

Firecamp is a good API client that supports GraphQL APIs.

FireCamp pros

FireCamp cons

Comparison table

When picking a GraphQL client, it’s essential to choose the tools based on what you need. The table below should help you find the ideal GraphQL client for your need.

GraphQL clientsPostmanInsomniaGraphiQLAltairHoppscotchTestfullyTestMaceFireCampApollo Studio Sandbox
FreeNoNoYesYesYesNoNoNoNo
Open-sourceNoYesYesYesYesNoNoNo
Syntax highlightingYesYesYesYesYesNoYesYesYes
Schema DocumentationYesYesYesYesYesNoYesYesYes
Saving GraphQL queriesYesYesYesYesYesYesYesYesYes
Testing CapabilitiesYesYesNoYesYesYesYesNoNo
Auto-completionYesYesYesYesYesNoYesYesYes
Environment variablesYesYesNoYesYesYesYesYesNo

Anatomy of GraphQL requests

Have you ever thought about how a GraphQL client sends requests to a GraphQL API? Some might think there will be some magic happening under the hood, but in reality, a GraphQL request is nothing but a simple HTTP POST request.

A GraphQL query is a POST request to an endpoint.

Field NameDescriptionMandatoryType
queryThe query field in the request body (usually JSON) carries the GraphQL query or mutationYesString
variablesThe variables field in the request body carries values for any variables in the provided GraphQL Query.NoObject

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