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Ask HN: Nice alternatives to Postman?

9 points by sebiw ↗ HN
Hey HN,

I'm looking for alternatives to Postman. It's become too bloated in my opinion and I no longer enjoy using it. I'd like something minimal yet effective, preferably as a "native" macOS app but I might be fine with a functional and well-designed electron app.

Thanks for any suggestions!

16 comments

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bencelaszlo
Bruno is a FOSS alternative, it is an Electron app, but widely used already: https://www.usebruno.com/downloads

What I like about it that requests are defined in a simple markup language called "Bru" and stores as simple text files, you can easily throw them around.

JLCarveth
I just started using this recently, I love it!
noop_joe
I like restclient. There's no UI, just .http files with a simple format for describing requests. there's a version for emacs and vscode that are mostly interoperable.
speedylight
I would say use insomnia but it’s going down the same path as postman. There are some nice VSCode extensions that integrate a REST client directly into the editor.
briHass
Same. I use https://github.com/Huachao/vscode-restclient

If you need a little more control or automation, it can also generate scripts for cURL or PowerShell (and others) directly from the request. Organization is on you, but I prefer that over a heavyweight and opinionated tool like Postman.

The .http files can also be used in Jetbrains Rider (probably their other suites as well)

rozenmd
Yaak, made by the original maker of Insomnia.
jjice
Not native, but Thunder Client is a VS Code extension that I've found pretty handy.