Insomnia REST Client vs Postman

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Insomnia REST Client

788
646
+ 1
44
Postman

94K
80.6K
+ 1
1.8K
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Insomnia REST Client vs Postman: What are the differences?

Insomnia REST Client and Postman are both popular API development tools that help developers test and debug APIs. While they serve similar purposes, there are key differences between the two that make them unique in their own way.

  1. User Interface and Experience: Insomnia REST Client offers a sleek and modern interface that focuses on simplicity and ease of use. It provides an intuitive design with a clean layout, making it easy for developers to navigate and manage their API requests efficiently. Postman, on the other hand, has a more comprehensive user interface with a wide range of features and options. It offers a sidebar with numerous functionalities and a more complex organization of API requests and collections.

  2. Workspace Collaboration: Insomnia REST Client provides built-in collaboration features that allow multiple developers to work together on the same project. It allows users to share workspaces, collaborate in real-time, and synchronize changes seamlessly. Postman, on the other hand, offers collaboration features through its team workspace functionality, which requires a separate subscription plan for team collaboration.

  3. Code Snippet Generation: Insomnia REST Client supports code snippet generation for various programming languages, which can be helpful for developers who want to quickly integrate API calls into their codebase. It provides pre-built code snippets that can be easily copied and pasted into different programming languages. Postman also offers code snippet generation, but it requires the use of external libraries or additional plugins to achieve the same functionality.

  4. Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) Integration: Insomnia REST Client has native integrations with popular CI/CD tools like Jenkins, Travis CI, and CircleCI, making it easier for developers to incorporate API testing into their CI/CD pipelines. It provides seamless integration and supports test automation at different stages of the software development lifecycle. Postman also has CI/CD integration capabilities but requires manual configuration and additional setup steps.

  5. Dynamic Variables: Insomnia REST Client has a robust system for managing and using dynamic variables within API requests. It allows users to define variables that can be reused across requests, making it easier to parameterize API calls and create dynamic workflows. Postman also supports dynamic variables but has a slightly more complex system for managing and using them effectively.

  6. Price and Licensing: Insomnia REST Client offers a free and open-source version, as well as a premium version with advanced features for teams and enterprises. The premium version is available at a relatively lower cost compared to Postman's pricing plans. Postman offers a limited free version and multiple paid plans, including individual, team, and enterprise options, with varying levels of features and support.

In summary, while both Insomnia REST Client and Postman are powerful API development tools, they have key differences in terms of user interface, collaboration features, code snippet generation, CI/CD integration, dynamic variable management, and pricing options. The choice between the two ultimately depends on the specific requirements and preferences of the development team.

Advice on Insomnia REST Client and Postman
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Swagger UISwagger UI

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?"

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Replies (3)
Jagdeep Singh
Tech Lead at ucreate.it · | 8 upvotes · 390.7K views

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).

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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.

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Sadik Ay
Recommends
on
PostmanPostman

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.

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Decisions about Insomnia REST Client and Postman
Stephen Fox
Artificial Intelligence Fellow · | 1 upvote · 344.7K views

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.

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Pros of Insomnia REST Client
Pros of Postman
  • 16
    Easy to work with
  • 11
    Great user interface
  • 6
    Works with GraphQL
  • 4
    Cross platform, available for Mac, Windows, and Linux
  • 3
    Opensource
  • 2
    Vim and Emacs key map
  • 2
    Preserves request templates
  • 0
    Does not have history feature
  • 490
    Easy to use
  • 369
    Great tool
  • 276
    Makes developing rest api's easy peasy
  • 156
    Easy setup, looks good
  • 144
    The best api workflow out there
  • 53
    It's the best
  • 53
    History feature
  • 44
    Adds real value to my workflow
  • 43
    Great interface that magically predicts your needs
  • 35
    The best in class app
  • 12
    Can save and share script
  • 10
    Fully featured without looking cluttered
  • 8
    Collections
  • 8
    Option to run scrips
  • 8
    Global/Environment Variables
  • 7
    Shareable Collections
  • 7
    Dead simple and useful. Excellent
  • 7
    Dark theme easy on the eyes
  • 6
    Awesome customer support
  • 6
    Great integration with newman
  • 5
    Documentation
  • 5
    Simple
  • 5
    The test script is useful
  • 4
    Saves responses
  • 4
    This has simplified my testing significantly
  • 4
    Makes testing API's as easy as 1,2,3
  • 4
    Easy as pie
  • 3
    API-network
  • 3
    I'd recommend it to everyone who works with apis
  • 3
    Mocking API calls with predefined response
  • 2
    Now supports GraphQL
  • 2
    Postman Runner CI Integration
  • 2
    Easy to setup, test and provides test storage
  • 2
    Continuous integration using newman
  • 2
    Pre-request Script and Test attributes are invaluable
  • 2
    Runner
  • 2
    Graph
  • 1
    <a href="http://fixbit.com/">useful tool</a>

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Cons of Insomnia REST Client
Cons of Postman
  • 4
    Do not have team sharing options
  • 2
    Do not store credentials in HTTP
  • 10
    Stores credentials in HTTP
  • 9
    Bloated features and UI
  • 8
    Cumbersome to switch authentication tokens
  • 7
    Poor GraphQL support
  • 5
    Expensive
  • 3
    Not free after 5 users
  • 3
    Can't prompt for per-request variables
  • 1
    Import swagger
  • 1
    Support websocket
  • 1
    Import curl

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What is Insomnia REST Client?

Insomnia is a powerful REST API Client with cookie management, environment variables, code generation, and authentication for Mac, Window, and Linux.

What is Postman?

It is the only complete API development environment, used by nearly five million developers and more than 100,000 companies worldwide.

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What companies use Insomnia REST Client?
What companies use Postman?
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What tools integrate with Insomnia REST Client?
What tools integrate with Postman?
    No integrations found

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