10 great REST API tools

1.Swagger Editor

Swagger Editor is a popular option for graphical visualization. In addition, you can generate server-side or client-side stubs for most related technologies, from ASP.NET Core and Kotlin to Node.JS and Python.

2.Apicurio

Apicurio is an open source project, simple and elegant, supporting JSON and YAML.

• Import APIs from source control, files and URLs.

• Integrate with your GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket account.

• Preview live documents.

• Provides a visual editor for designing APIs based on the Open API standard (no coding skills required!) .

 

3.Postman

Postman is an intuitive and well-organized desktop tool for creating, testing, and monitoring APIs, and it's one of my personal favorites because it was the first tool I used to test my own APIs, and learning it couldn't have been smoother. The product is comprehensive and covers the API development process from creation to testing and monitoring.

With Postman, you can：

• Add the mock server.

• Switch between environment settings.

• Generate documents.

• Apply custom styles.

Medium and large teams will appreciate its individual and team workspaces, as well as forking and merging features that are similar to version control systems like GitHub. You can also add basic API monitors (run every minute, hour, or week) and get email notifications about failures.

 

4.Ping API

Ping API is a powerful API checker. It has a minimalist interface and allows creating projects for HTTP API calls. After filling in the request and response data, it will automatically generate the test code. You can also create setup scripts in JavaScript (or CoffeeScript) that are called before each test.

It has some basic built-in functions for parsing, decoding and encoding URIs. It will send notifications via email, Slack or Hipchat if a failure occurs. It's great for Web developers who need their sites to provide fast response on a global scale. Its tests check API responses from 5 locations on 3 continents, in the US, Japan, Germany and Singapore. You can plan running tests from 1 minute to a full day.

 

5.API Science

API Science is an intuitive monitoring tool with graphs and charts. API Science checks the status, availability and performance of your or third-party APIs, and automatically notifies of failure conditions. Its dashboard is intuitive and easy to use.

You can upgrade monitoring capabilities with custom JavaScript scripts to run with tests (e.g., load or parse data from JSON) or generate reports (but not download them). Import options for other API-related tools are also nice, with support for Postman, Swagger, RAML, HAR. its servers are located in the US, Japan, and Ireland, making it less friendly for users in the southern hemisphere.

 

6.ReadyAPI

ReadyAPI is an advanced platform for functional, security and load testing, tightly integrated with your CI/CD pipeline. readyAPI is a combination of 3 tools that can be purchased as separate licenses: SoapUI Pro (functional testing), LoadUI Pro (performance testing) and ServiceV Pro (service virtualization). They claim to be the "most advanced API testing tool on the market", and that may not be an exaggeration.

ReadyAPI has many options, which can be daunting at first. It's not cheap because it's targeted at large companies whose products require complex testing from top to bottom.

It integrates with multiple CI/CD tools: Git, Docker, Jenkins, Azure DevOps, TeamCity, and more. For tight budgets, it also has open source free versions for Windows, Linux, and Mac, but the testing is slow.

7.Insomnia

Insomnia is a desktop application that allows you to debug API specifications using the Git sync option. The "Design" section provides style validation with detailed error messages. The automatically generated preview is similar to the Swagger Editor. In the "Debug" section, you can modify the API using the following methods.

• Send a request with cookies, queries and headers, with the body of the request filled in the editor

• Configuring the environment for JSON

• Multiple authorization options supported: Basic, Digest, Bearer Token, Microsoft NTLM, OAuth, AWS IAM, Hawk, Atlassian ASAP, Netrc File

• Client-side code snippet generators for multiple languages, some of which have different library implementations.

The platform can be extended with installable plugins made by the Insomnia community. These plugins cover JWT and token generators, environment settings, XML-JSON converters, randomizers, and UI themes. With the purchase of a paid subscription, teams can collaborate and host their projects in the cloud.

8.Talend API Tester

Talend API Tester is a dedicated tool for testing HTTP and REST APIs. Its main features are.

• Sending requests and checking responses

• Validating API behavior

• Importing Postman, Swagger, OAS, OpenAPI, HAR test collections

With APITester, you can create dynamic requests with custom variables, security and authentication and organize them as items or services. You can run assertions against responses in different formats (JSON, XML, HTML and others). Assertions are created in the visual editor.

9.Apigee

Apigee is an online platform that allows you to build, manage, consume APIs and expose their functionality for consumers through its portal. Of all the online tools mentioned in this article, Apigee stands out for being the most elegant web experience, analytics tool, proxy builder, and easy-to-use website builder.

If you need to adopt SOAP services in a REST service, or if you consume APIs but want to expose them through a man-in-the-middle backend service, it provides you with a proxy wizard with many policy options (quotas, authentication, data brokerage, caching).

Apigee provides users with a clean, modern and intuitive portal, including an interactive and automatically generated documentation site for the API. Portal templates with CSS themes, HTML and user management presets can be quickly customized or published.

• Geographical distribution of API usage

• Agent Performance

• Error code analysis

 

10.Linx

Linx is a compact developer tool for back-end integration, automation, and Web services.

Usage Scenarios：

• Build, host and manage multiple APIs through one platform

• Consume and orchestrate data across multiple technology endpoints

• Accelerated API development

• Simplify existing APIs

Linx is particularly powerful for creating or calling internal and external REST Web services. It is the fastest way to extend APIs that need to be integrated with other technologies (e.g., you need to load or push data into a database, establish tight connections, push updates to notify notification streams, modify or encrypt data at any time, etc.).

In addition to REST, Linx offers several features from database to encryption and cloud, providing countless possibilities for integrating APIs with multiple technologies.Linx IDE Designer is a great free option for performing tests and service calls. To monitor and automate test suites, or to schedule calls locally or in the cloud, you will need to upgrade to the paid Linx Server.

 

API Tools Comparison