Introduction So you've decided that with your next project you are going to tread the RESTful path. But to be smart about it, you need an intelligent tool to ensure quality and productivity. With the abundance of options available, let's thumb through some of the developers' favorites. First things first - API definition is a popular choice with graphical visualization. APIs can be defined either in JSON or YAML. Additionally, you can generate a server-side or client-side stub for most of the relevant technologies (from ASP.net core and Kotlin to Nodejs and Python). Swagger Editor is an open-source project, and elegant tool with support for and YAML. What you get: Apicurio simple JSON Importing APIs from source control, file, URL Integration with your GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket account Previewing live documentation Visual editors for designing APIs on Open API standard (no coding skills required!) Watch it go! - Tests and monitors is an intuitive and well-organized desktop tool. It is one of my personal favorites as it was the first-ever tool that I used to test my own APIs and the learning curve couldn't have been smoother. The product is well-rounded as it covers the API development from to and . Postman creation testing monitoring With Postman, you can: add mock servers, switch between environmental setups, generate documentation, apply custom styling. Medium and large teams will appreciate the personal and team workspaces, and that work similarly to that of any version control system like . You can also add a basic API monitor (runs on a minute, hour or week basis) and get about failures. fork merge features GitHub email notifications is a powerful . Minimalistic in appearance, it allows the creation of projects for HTTP API calls. After you fill in the request and response data, test code is auto-generated. You can also create in JavaScript (or CoffeeScript) that are invoked before each test. Ping API API inspector set-up scripts It has a few basic for parsing, decoding and encoding URIs. In case of failures, a notification is sent via email, Slack or Hipchat. It's especially useful for web developers whose sites need to be responsive around the globe. Tests check APIs responses from 5 locations in 3 continents: in U.S.A., Japan, Germany and Singapore. You can to run tests from 1 minute to a full day. built-in functions schedule is an easy-on-the-eye monitoring tool with and . API Science lets you check , , and of your or third-party APIs and automatically notifies about failures. The dashboard is straightforward to use and intuitive. API Science graphs charts health availability performance You can upgrade your monitoring with to run with tests (e.g. to load or parse data from JSON) or generate a report (not downloadable). A nice touch is the import option from other popular API-related tools: Postman, Swagger, RAML, HAR. Sad news for the Southern Hemisphere, servers that are located in the US, Japan and Ireland. custom JavaScript scripts - is an advanced platform for for tight integration with your CI/CD pipeline. ReadyAPI is a combination of 3 tools available for separate licence purchase: SoapUI Pro (functional testing), LoadUI Pro (performance testing), ServiceV Pro (service virtualization). They describe themselves as "the Most API Testing Tool on the Market", and they might be right. ReadyAPI functional, security, and load testing Advanced ReadyAPI options are vast and can be intimidating to learn at first. It's not cheap as it's aimed at large companies with large products and complex tests. The projects integrate with several CI/CD tools: Git, Docker, Jenkins, Azure DevOps, TeamCity, and more. Good news for tight budgets: there are available for Windows, Linux and Mac, however, the tests are slower. open-source free versions is a desktop app for debugging your API spec with Git sync option. The "Design" section offers with detailed error messages. The auto-generated preview might remind API-navvies of Swagger Editor. In the "Debug" section you can tinker your API with: Insomnia style validation with cookies, query and header, body of request is filled in editor; Sending request Environments configured as JSONs; Support for multiple : Basic, Digest, Bearer Token, Microsoft NTLM, OAuth, AWS IAM, Hawk, Atlassian ASAP, Netrc File; authorization options Client-side code snippet generator for multiple languages, some with different library implementations. The platform can be extended with made by Insomnia community. The plugins cover JWT and token generators, environmental setups, XML-JSON translators, randomizers and UI themes. With plans, teams can collaborate and host the project in the . installable plugins paid cloud is a free tool dedicated to testing HTTP and REST APIs. The significant functionalities are: Talend API Tester Sending requests and inspecting responses Validating API behaviour Importing Postman, Swagger, OAS, OpenAPI, HAR test collections With API Tester you can create dynamic requests with custom variables, security and authentication and keep them organized as projects or services. You can run assertions against the responses of different formats (JSON, XML, HTML and others). are created in visual editors. Assertions Bringing the API out to the world is an online platform that enables you to , , APIs and expose its functionalities via a portal for your consumers. From all the online tools mentioned in this smackdown, Apigee set itself apart from the others with the most elegant web experience, analytical tools, proxy creator, and . Apigee build manage consume sweet website generator If you need to adopt a SOAP service into a REST one, or you consume API but would like to expose API's backend services via a middleman, you are presented with proxy wizards with lots of policy options (quotas, authentications, data mediation, caching). Apigee offers the consumer, neat, modern and straightforward portals including interactive sites for your APIs. The portal templates, with CSS themes, HTML and user management premade is ready to be customized or published right away. To ensure world-class API performance, their and charts cover: auto-generated documentation analytics tool latency, response time, geographical distribution of API usage, proxy performance, error code analytics. Putting the moving parts together is a sophisticated developer tool for , and . The main use scenarios are: Linx backend integrations automations web services Building, hosting and with one platform, managing multiple APIs Consuming and orchestrating data across many technology end-points, Accelerating API Development, Simplifying existing APIs. Linx is particularly powerful for creating or calling internal and external REST web services. It is on the fastest ways to extend an API that requires (e.g. you need to load or push data into a database, conjure up a rapport, push updates to notification steam, modify or encrypt data at any point, etc). integration with other technologies Alongside REST, Linx offers several other features from database to cryptography and cloud, which creates tons of possibilities for integrating your API with multiple different technologies. The Linx IDE Designer is a great, free option for carrying out tests and service calls. If you want to monitor and automatize the test suits or schedule calls either in , you will need to upgrade to the paid Linx Server. on-premise or cloud Feature smackdown Still at a lost? Use the comparison table below to help yourself decide. Conclusion With REST's and APIs' taking root in the digital world, one can only expect more tools to appear. Now that you had a glimpse of options above, tailored for different needs of various size teams, projects and capabilities. If you are not happy with your current choice, it's easy enough to hop and experiment. Let me know your favorites in the comments below. Happy hunting.
