11 Postman alternatives you should know about

Back in 2012, when Abhinav Asthana released the first version, Postman was a simple HTTP client available as a Chrome extension. Fast forward to today, Postman became a collaboration platform for API development. Postman features include but are not limited to the HTTP client, tools for API testing and API monitoring, mock API servers, and documentation.

Postman offers solutions in different verticals. As a result, it attracts users with various needs. For example, if you are using Postman for API testing, we recommend you to read our api testing tools as we have listed some of the best API testing tools in the market for you. Moreover, we wrote an in-depth article and compared Testfully as an excellent Postman alternative for API testing and monitoring.

This article lists the top 11 Postman alternatives for sending requests to different types of APIs, including SOAP, Restful, or GraphQL. We continue to update this article with the latest information about the offered features. Please reach out to us via our contact page for any correction or addition of a new tool.

Table of Contents

• Testfully
• Insomnia
• Hoppscotch
• Paw
• Thunder Client
• Postcode
• Firecamp
• TestMace
• Nightingale
• API Tester
• curlx
• Comparison Table

Testfully

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

Testfully is a fully-fledged Cloud native & Offline only API client with API testing & monitoring superpower.

• It supports Restful & GraphQL API implementations by offering Headers, Query Params, File Uploads, Authorization, Variables, and more.
• The desktop app is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Also, you can use Testfully via a modern browser.
• Testfully is also available via CLI, enabling integration with a wide range of CI/CD tools.
• Supports import from Postman, including collections, globals, and environments.

Testfully’s Pros

• It offers a free plan including 5 team members
• Supports both cloud-based storage & local (offline). Learn more
• Import Postman Collections, Environments, and Globals instantly.
• Supports Rest & GraphQL
• Configure headers, query params, and authorization for requests, folders, and environments.
• Supports OAuth2, Basic Auth, Bearer Token, and API Key authorization.
• Run collections without any limit (including free plan)
• No coding is required for API validation; everyone on your team can use it
• Supports multi-step tests and request chaining for advanced API testing
• Collaborate with your team members through shared requests and folders. Keep confidential information private by leveraging user-scoped variable values.
• Auto-generated API Documentation for you.
• You can use requests for API monitoring as well

Testfully’s Cons

• Currently, it does not support Soap APIs

Demo

Insomnia

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Website: insomnia.rest – Pricing: Free, Paid plans start at $5 (per month/user)

Insomnia started as an HTTP client, just like Postman itself, and evolved into a tool for API development. It offers an HTTP client, automated API testing, and an Open API editor. You can send requests to both local & deployed APIs, define multiple environments, and embed environment variables in your requests. It supports XML, JSON, Form, and many other types of request payload, so it’s easy to construct any request.

Insomnia Pros

• Simple and easy-to-use UI. Unlike Postman, Insomnia offers a simple and elegant user interface.
• Insomnia loads faster than Postman and is more responsive than Postman
• You can organize multiple API services using collections and focus on one at a time.
• You can embed customizable random values to your request

Insomnia Cons

• You cannot write tests for standard requests. Testing capabilities of Insomnia are only available to Design Documents (API specs written in Open API format).

Hoppscotch

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Website: hoppscotch.io – Pricing: Free & Open source

Hoppscotch is an open-source Postman alternative. It is available via browser and does not require any account so if you are looking for an online Postman alternative, you should check out Hoppscotch. Open hoppscotch.io, and you can start sending requests. Moreover, Hoppscotch offers dedicated UI for Restful, GraphQL, and Web socket connections. You can easily send requests to APIs in different environments using Hoppscotch’s Environment and Environment Variable feature. Hoppscotch’s approach to testing is similar to Postman and Insomnia, a simple code editor to write test cases in Javascript using Hoppscotch’s testing framework.

Hoppscotch’s Pros

• Dedicated GUI for Web socket allows you to send messages to Web sockets
• Dedicated GUI for GraphQL APIs allows you to explore GraphQL schemas and send requests easily

Hoppscotch’s Cons

• It’s still the early days of Hoppscotch, so there is not much documentation
• While testing Hoppscotch, we noticed some bugs in UI

Paw

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Website: paw.app – Pricing: $49

Paw was available as a Mac-only app for a long time with a $49.99 price tag. On Feb 2021, Rapid API announced that they had acquired Paw and announced the availability of cross-platform Paw applications and a new subscription-based pricing model. Out of the box, Paw does not offer many of the features that Postman offers but don’t let that disappoint you because Paw provides a range of extensions for adding new features. For example, we used a Faker.js extension to generate random data and include it in the request.

Paw’s Pros

• The native Mac app is fast
• Paw is extendable using 3rd-party extensions

Paw’s Cons

• Does not offer a free plan

Thunder Client

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Website: thunderclient.io – Pricing: Free

Thunder Client is a Vscode Postman alternative since it runs as a Visual Studio Code extension (not open source) and has focused on being a simple and efficient HTTP client while building or integrating with APIs. It supports collections as a way to group relevant requests. Moreover, ThunderClient supports the concept of Environment and Environment Variables to store and reuse values within multiple requests. Finally, ThunderClinet offers a UI that you can use to set the expected response code, response time, and response body for testing APIs.

Thunder Client’s Pros

• It’s free

Thunder Client’s Cons

• Only available as a VScode extension

Postcode

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Website: Github/Postcode – Pricing: Free

Similar to Thunder Client, Postcode is a fast Vscode Postman alternative. Unlike Thunder Client, Postcode is open source. Postcode UI is very similar to Postman which makes it easy for new users to start using this tool. It supports both RESTful and GraphQL APIs, however, the GraphQL support lacks query completion and schema explorer. When it comes to authorization, Postcode only offers Basic Auth and Bearer Token.

If you’re using Postman to send basic HTTP requests, you can easily rely on Postcode to do the same but without leaving your Vscode. That said, if you’re after a fully-fledged API client, please consider other options on this page.

Postcode’s Pros

• It’s free & open source
• A simple and clean UI that follows your VSCode theme

Postcode’s Cons

• Only available as a VScode extension
• You cannot save requests for future usage
• No scripting capabilities offered

Firecamp

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Website: firecamp.io – Pricing: Free, Paid plans start at $9 (per month/user)

Firecamp started as an alternative for Postman to offer features that Postman doesn’t have in API development. It provides an HTTP client, a dedicated GUI for WebSocket, GraphQL, and Socket.io. You may face some bugs and get confused while working with the app, but generally, it looks fine. Firecamp currently does not have a CLI tool, but the website says it will come soon. In addition, free users can invite up to 3 team members to their workspace for team collaboration.

Firecamp Pros

• Firecamp provides a dedicated GUI for WebSocket, GraphQL, and Socket.io
• You can organize multiple API services using collections and focus on one at a time.
• You can import Postman collections

Firecamp Cons

• While testing Firecamp, we noticed some bugs
• UI can be confusing
• You can invite up to 3 team members as part of the free plan.
• Currently, it does not offer a CLI
• You cannot import Postman environment files

TestMace

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Website: testmace.com – Pricing: Free, Paid plans start from $4 a month/ Individual.

TestMace is a cross-platform API client (Windows, Mac, Linux) and API testing tool that works with different APIs. Using TestMace, you can easily create, execute, and manage HTTP requests and tests for your API as a developer or tester.

TestMace Pros

• TestMace supports global variables (Environment, User-defined, Default)
• You can add various assertions to your requests to test your APIs.
• You can see responses and requests at the same time.
• TestMace supports the group for your requests by adding them in a folder, so you can run all of them on one hood.
• You can set the default header in the folder level, applying all its requests.
• TestMace can generate random data with scripting ability.
• You can write JavaScript codes as the Setup/teardown scripts.
• TestMace supports “Team Collaboration”. You can sync your project to the cloud and share it with your team.
• The “UI” is simple.
• You can use the multi-step (chained) request capability of TestMace to create complex automated tests.
• TestMace supports export and import.
• You can test your API through CLI (Command-Line) tool in TastMace.
• TestMace supports GraphQL.

TestMace Cons

• The documentation is not complete. For example, there is no information about making requests using GraphQL in TastMace.
• TestMace doesn’t support SOAP APIs.
• You cannot use TestMace for API monitoring. If you’re looking for a Postman alternative for API monitoring, please check our API monitoring tools list.

Nightingale

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Website: nightingale.rest – Pricing: Free

The Nightingale REST client makes it easy to test your APIs without writing a single line of code. This interactive Windows application allows you to call any API, make requests and observe responses. It’s easy to install and has a simple UI. Moreover, It presents some facilities like workspaces, collections, and more.

Nightingale Pros

• Nightingale is free.
• Nightingale supports multi-step (chained) requests.
• You can use collections to have more organized workspaces.
• You can embed and reuse customized values in your requests using environment variables.
• Nightingale supports importing from other clients such as Postman, Insomnia, etc.
• You can execute all requests on one run.
• You can add the mock servers to generate random data in Nightingale for your front-end development team or anything that uses your API to continue their development. At the same time, you are working on your APIs.

Nightingale Cons

• Nightingale is a REST client only.
• Nightingale doesn’t support assertions.
• Nightingale doesn’t offer user management. Thus, the team cant collaborate.
• Nightingale doesn’t support GraphQL.
• It is only available for the Windows platform

API Tester

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Website: apitester.org – Pricing: Free

API Tester is a free and lightweight alternative to Postman. The main goal of API Tester is to offer a convenient app that helps to shift the performance of some work tasks from desktops to mobile devices, thereby allowing developers and testers to not be tied to their workstations as only a mobile phone is always with us. Currently, the app allows interaction with all the most popular API types, including Rest and GraphQL.

APITester Pros

• Free; available as a mobile application

APITester Cons

• Does not support folders for organization
• Does not offer a solution for Windows or Linux users
• Multiple environments cannot be configured (e.g. UAT, Prod, Dev)
• You cannot collaborate with your colleagues

curlx

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Website: curlx.dev – Pricing: Free

Curlx, as you might have already guessed, is a supercharged cURL. It’s cURL with the goodness of Postman, for terminal lovers. Shivkanth Bagavathy, the creator of Curlx, has made a great decision (in my opinion) to follow cURL’s syntax so if you know how to use cURL, you’re going to feel at home with Curlx.

History and Collections make CurlX a supercharged cURL. Access past requests using the cx history command and organize requests into collections using the cx collections command.

Curlx uses your disk to store the data in JSON format which makes it super easy to version control your data and share it with your colleagues.

Curlx Pros

• Free & open source
• Follows cURL syntax which makes it easy to use
• Local storage

Curlx Cons

• Requires Node.js runtime to work, distributed via NPM

Comparison Table

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To help you make better decisions faster, We have put a list of features and their availability. You can use this table to decide what matters for you most and pick your Postman alternative.

Feature	Postman	Testfully	Insomnia	Hoppscotch	Thunder Client	Postcode	Paw	Firecamp	TestMace	Nightingale	API Tester	curlx
Platform	Web & Desktop	Web	Desktop	Web	VSCode Extension	VSCode Extension	Web & Desktop	Desktop	Desktop	Desktop (Windows)	iOS, Android, Mac OS	Terminal
Free Plan	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Premium Plan	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Coding Skills Required	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No
Restful API support	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
GraphQL API support	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Soap API support	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Request chaining	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No
Environments	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Random Data	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
API Testing	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
API Monitoring	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
CLI	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	Coming Soon	Yes	No	No	Yes
Team Collaboration	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No