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I abandoned Postman for THIS

Felix Merritt

• 2 min read

For API developers, Postman is a fantastic tool for debugging endpoints and catching any bugs.

For API developers, Postman is a fantastic tool for debugging endpoints and catching bugs. However, as a seasoned user, I've encountered several inconveniences, such as:

  • Every time I finish coding, I have to copy the API URL and parameters into Postman. Often, I'm just clicking "Send," but I've already wasted more time on inputting parameters than I'd like.
  • Setting up assertions is only possible with built-in JavaScript scripts, which isn’t very intuitive.
  • Similarly, extracting variables from responses also requires scripting.
  • Frequently, I need to compare API responses with my database, but Postman can't do that.
  • On top of that, the constant nudges to pay for premium features are maddening.

So, I started looking for alternatives. I tried Insomnia and Thunder Client, but they didn’t really stand out against Postman.

Then I discovered EchoAPI, and it basically checked all my boxes.

1. Rich Plugin Ecosystem

As a Java developer, EchoAPI offers an IntelliJ IDEA plugin that scans my code and identifies all the APIs. All I need to do is click "Send." Plus, I can sync data directly to the EchoAPI client with one click.

EchoAPI's Rich Plugin Ecosystem

Like Postman, EchoAPI supports pre-scripts and test scripts that are fully compatible with Postman’s syntax. However, today I want to highlight some additional features.

2. Visual Operations

EchoAPI excels with its visual operations.

Visual Assertions

You can set up assertions visually from the response body (JSON, XML, etc.), headers, status codes, and response times—no coding required.

EchoAPI Visual Assertions

Visual Variable Extraction

You can extract variables visually from the response body, headers, status codes, and response times, again with zero coding.

EchoAPI Visual Variable Extraction

3. Database Capabilities

EchoAPI supports database operations in pre- and post-request scripts. This means I can do things like read from a user table in the pre-script to use the data as request parameters, or check the comments table after adding a comment to see if it was correctly inserted into my MySQL database.

EchoAPI Database Capabilities

All in all, EchoAPI is an amazing product.

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