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Postman vs SuperTest: What are the differences?
Introduction: Postman and SuperTest are two popular tools used for API testing. While they both serve the purpose of testing APIs, there are several key differences between them. Below are the six main differences between Postman and SuperTest.
User Interface and Ease of Use: Postman provides a user-friendly GUI interface that allows users to easily create, manage, and execute API tests. On the other hand, SuperTest is a JavaScript library that requires users to write code in order to create and execute tests. This makes Postman more accessible to non-technical users who may not have programming knowledge.
Testing Capabilities: Postman offers a wide range of testing capabilities, including the ability to send requests, validate responses, run automated tests, and generate reports. SuperTest, on the other hand, focuses more on the ability to send HTTP requests and validate responses. It does not offer as many built-in testing features as Postman.
Integration and Collaboration: Postman provides seamless integration with various development and testing tools, making it easy to share and collaborate on API testing projects. It also offers cloud-based collaboration features, allowing team members to work together on the same project. SuperTest, on the other hand, does not have built-in collaboration features and requires additional tools for sharing and collaborative testing.
Flexibility and Extensibility: Postman allows users to easily create custom scripts and functions using JavaScript, enabling advanced testing scenarios and flexibility. SuperTest, being a JavaScript library, allows for similar customization but requires users to have programming knowledge to implement it.
Platform Support: Postman is a standalone tool available for Windows, macOS, and Linux, making it accessible on different operating systems. SuperTest, being a JavaScript library, can be used in any programming environment that supports JavaScript, making it platform-independent.
Pricing and Licensing: Postman offers both free and paid versions, with the paid version providing additional features and support. SuperTest, on the other hand, is an open-source library and does not require any licensing fees.
In summary, Postman provides a user-friendly GUI interface, extensive testing capabilities, integration and collaboration features, flexibility, and support for multiple platforms. SuperTest, on the other hand, is a JavaScript library that requires coding skills, has limited testing capabilities, and lacks built-in collaboration features.
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 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
Pros of SuperTest
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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