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Mapbox vs Postman: What are the differences?
Mapbox and Postman are two popular tools used in web development, but they serve different purposes. Mapbox is a mapping platform that provides APIs and SDKs for developers to integrate interactive maps and geolocation services into their applications. On the other hand, Postman is an API development and testing tool that allows developers to design, build, and test APIs efficiently.
Integration: Mapbox focuses on providing geolocation services and mapping capabilities, allowing developers to display and interact with maps in their applications. It offers various APIs and SDKs that enable developers to customize the map appearance, add markers, and create interactive features. In contrast, Postman is primarily used for API development and testing. It allows developers to design and build APIs, define endpoints, and test API functionality without the need for a full-fledged application.
Workflow: Mapbox offers tools and services specifically designed for map-related tasks, making it ideal for projects that heavily rely on location-based services. With Mapbox, developers can easily add and customize maps, geocode addresses, and create route directions. On the other hand, Postman focuses on streamlining the API development workflow. It provides features like request building, response analysis, and collaboration tools that make it easier for developers to create and test APIs.
Integration with Third-Party Services: Mapbox offers integration with various third-party services that enhance the mapping functionality. This includes services like geocoding, routing, and real-time traffic data. These integrations provide developers with additional capabilities to build powerful location-based applications. In comparison, Postman does not provide built-in integrations to external services but allows developers to send requests to any API endpoints and analyze the responses.
Collaboration and Documentation: Postman offers robust collaboration features that enable developers to share API specifications, test cases, and collections with team members. It also provides tools for documenting APIs, generating API documentation, and automatically updating it as changes are made. Mapbox, on the other hand, does not have built-in collaboration and documentation features specific to APIs, as it primarily focuses on mapping functionality.
Pricing: Mapbox offers both free and paid plans, with different tiers depending on the required usage and features. The pricing is based on factors such as map views, geocoding requests, routing requests, and additional services. In contrast, Postman offers a free plan for individual users, but also provides paid plans for teams and enterprises, offering additional features and collaboration capabilities.
Supported Platforms and Languages: Mapbox provides support for different platforms and languages, making it compatible with a wide range of web and mobile development frameworks. It offers SDKs and APIs for platforms like iOS, Android, JavaScript, Unity, and React Native, among others. Postman, on the other hand, is a desktop application available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. However, it also provides features like Newman, a command-line interface, for integrating Postman with other tools and automation.
In Summary, Mapbox is a mapping platform that offers APIs and SDKs for integrating interactive maps and geolocation services into applications, while Postman is an API development and testing tool that streamlines the workflow of building and testing APIs. Mapbox focuses on mapping functionality and location-based services, while Postman is more geared towards API design, testing, and collaboration.
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.
From a StackShare Community member: "We're a team of two starting to write a mobile app. The app will heavily rely on maps and this is where my partner and I are not seeing eye-to-eye. I would like to go with an open source solution like OpenStreetMap that is used by Apple & Foursquare. He would like to go with Google Maps since more apps use it and has better support (according to him). Mapbox is also an option but I don’t know much about it."
I use Mapbox because We need 3D maps and navigation, it has a great plugin for React and React Native which we use. Also the Mapbox Geocoder is great.
I use OpenStreetMap because that has a strong community. It takes some time to catch up with Google Maps, but OpenStreetMap will become great solution.
Google Maps is best because it is practically free (they give you $300 in free credits per month and it's really hard to go over the free tier unless you really mean business) and it's the best!
I use Google Maps because it has a lot of great features such as Google's rich APIs, geolocation functions, navigation search feature, street map view, auto-generated 3D city map.
I use OpenStreetMap because i have the control of the environment, using Docker containers or bare-metal servers.
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 Mapbox
- Best mapping service outside of Google Maps28
- OpenStreetMap22
- Beautifully vectorable15
- Fluid user experience11
- Extensible8
- React/ RNative integration7
- 3D Layers5
- Low Level API4
- Affordable4
- Great customer support3
- Custom themes3
- High data volume rendering2
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 Mapbox
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