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Amazon API Gateway vs Insomnia REST Client vs Postman: What are the differences?
Introduction: In the realm of API development and testing, Amazon API Gateway, Insomnia REST Client, and Postman are commonly used tools. Understanding the key differences between these tools is crucial for developers to choose the right one for their project needs.
1. Integration with Amazon Web Services (AWS): One key difference between Amazon API Gateway and Insomnia REST Client/Postman is that Amazon API Gateway seamlessly integrates with other AWS services, making it a preferred choice for developers working within the AWS ecosystem. In contrast, Insomnia REST Client and Postman are standalone tools that do not have direct integration with AWS services.
2. Support for Collaboration and Teamwork: Postman excels in supporting collaboration among team members through features like shared workspaces, version control, and team libraries. This makes it easier for multiple team members to work on API development and testing simultaneously. On the other hand, Insomnia REST Client lacks these advanced collaboration features, which can make it challenging for teams to effectively work together on API projects.
3. Mocking and Monitoring Capabilities: Postman provides robust mocking and monitoring capabilities, allowing developers to simulate API endpoints and monitor their performance easily. In comparison, Insomnia REST Client lacks built-in support for mocking and monitoring APIs, which may require developers to use additional tools or services for these functionalities.
4. User Interface and User Experience: Insomnia REST Client is known for its sleek and minimalist user interface, focusing on simplicity and ease of use. On the other hand, Postman offers a more feature-rich UI with a variety of tools and options, which can be overwhelming for beginners but beneficial for advanced users who require extensive functionality.
5. Pricing and Licensing: While Insomnia REST Client and Postman offer free versions for individual users, Postman's pricing plans are more expensive for teams and enterprise users compared to Insomnia REST Client. Additionally, Amazon API Gateway's pricing is based on API calls and data transfer, making it a cost-effective choice for developers with varying usage levels.
6. Extensibility and Customization: Postman's extensive library of integrations and plugins allows developers to customize and extend its functionalities to suit their specific needs. In contrast, Amazon API Gateway and Insomnia REST Client have more limited options for extending or customizing the tool's capabilities, which may restrict developers with unique requirements.
In Summary, understanding the key differences between Amazon API Gateway and Insomnia REST Client/Postman in terms of integration with AWS, collaboration support, mocking and monitoring capabilities, user interface, pricing, and extensibility is essential for developers to make informed decisions on selecting the most suitable tool for their API development and testing projects.
From a StackShare Community member: "I just started working for a start-up and we are in desperate need of better documentation for our API. Currently our API docs is in a README.md file. We are evaluating Postman and Swagger UI. Since there are many options and I was wondering what other StackSharers would recommend?"
I use Postman because of the ease of team-management, using workspaces and teams, runner, collections, environment variables, test-scripts (post execution), variable management (pre and post execution), folders (inside collections, for better management of APIs), newman, easy-ci-integration (and probably a few more things that I am not able to recall right now).
I use Swagger UI because it's an easy tool for end-consumers to visualize and test our APIs. It focuses on that ! And it's directly embedded and delivered with the APIs. Postman's built-in tools aren't bad, but their main focus isn't the documentation and also, they are hosted outside the project.
I recommend Postman because it's easy to use with history option. Also, it has very great features like runner, collections, test scripts runners, defining environment variables and simple exporting and importing data.
Postman supports automation and organization in a way that Insomnia just doesn't. Admittedly, Insomnia makes it slightly easy to query the data that you get back (in a very MongoDB-esque query language) but Postman sets you up to develop the code that you would use in development/testing right in the editor.
Pros of Amazon API Gateway
- AWS Integration37
- Websockets7
- Serverless1
Pros of Insomnia REST Client
- Easy to work with16
- Great user interface11
- Works with GraphQL6
- Cross platform, available for Mac, Windows, and Linux4
- Opensource3
- Vim and Emacs key map2
- Preserves request templates2
- Does not have history feature0
Pros of Postman
- Easy to use490
- Great tool369
- Makes developing rest api's easy peasy276
- Easy setup, looks good156
- The best api workflow out there144
- It's the best53
- History feature53
- Adds real value to my workflow44
- Great interface that magically predicts your needs43
- The best in class app35
- Can save and share script12
- Fully featured without looking cluttered10
- Collections8
- Option to run scrips8
- Global/Environment Variables8
- Shareable Collections7
- Dead simple and useful. Excellent7
- Dark theme easy on the eyes7
- Awesome customer support6
- Great integration with newman6
- Documentation5
- Simple5
- The test script is useful5
- Saves responses4
- This has simplified my testing significantly4
- Makes testing API's as easy as 1,2,34
- Easy as pie4
- API-network3
- I'd recommend it to everyone who works with apis3
- Mocking API calls with predefined response3
- Now supports GraphQL2
- Postman Runner CI Integration2
- Easy to setup, test and provides test storage2
- Continuous integration using newman2
- Pre-request Script and Test attributes are invaluable2
- Runner2
- Graph2
- <a href="http://fixbit.com/">useful tool</a>1
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Cons of Amazon API Gateway
- No websocket broadcast2
- Less expensive1
Cons of Insomnia REST Client
- Do not have team sharing options4
- Do not store credentials in HTTP2
Cons of Postman
- Stores credentials in HTTP10
- Bloated features and UI9
- Cumbersome to switch authentication tokens8
- Poor GraphQL support7
- Expensive5
- Not free after 5 users3
- Can't prompt for per-request variables3
- Import swagger1
- Support websocket1
- Import curl1
