Top 14 Postman Alternatives for API Testing in 2026
We first published this list in 2024. A lot of it stopped being true, so we rebuilt the whole thing. Four tools from the original list are gone: TestMace and Firecamp are effectively unmaintained, Nightingale is a dormant hobby project, and Paw (later RapidAPI for Mac) sits in maintenance mode after Nokia acquired Rapid’s technology in late 2024. In their place, a wave of local-first clients has taken over the category. Every fact below was checked in July 2026.
One disclosure before the list: we make two of the tools in the first entry. I’ll tell you exactly what they’re for and where they don’t fit, and you can judge the rest of the list on the same terms.
Why people leave Postman
Three complaints come up over and over. The client has grown heavy, both in memory and in UI surface area. Collections require a Postman account and cloud sync since the Scratch Pad was retired in 2023, which some security teams simply won’t allow. And per-seat pricing adds up once a whole team is on it.
The result is a category split. On one side are lightweight API clients that put collections back in your repo as plain files. On the other are test automation platforms built to run API tests in CI. This list covers both, and it says which is which.
The 14 alternatives compared
| Tool | Open source | Protocols | Local-first | Paid from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Speedscale / proxymock | Free CLI, commercial cloud | HTTP, gRPC, Postgres, MySQL, Redis | Yes | Traffic-based |
| Bruno | Yes | REST, GraphQL (gRPC paid) | Yes | $6/user/mo |
| Hoppscotch | Yes | REST, GraphQL, WebSocket, MQTT | Self-host | $6/user/mo |
| Insomnia | Yes | REST, GraphQL, gRPC, WebSocket | Optional | $12/user/mo |
| Yaak | Yes | REST, GraphQL, gRPC, WebSocket, SSE | Yes | $79/yr |
| Apidog | No | REST, GraphQL, gRPC, WebSocket | No | $9/user/mo |
| Thunder Client | No | REST (gRPC, WebSocket paid) | Yes | $3/user/mo |
| Kreya | No | gRPC, REST, GraphQL, WebSocket | Yes | Quote |
| Restfox | Yes | REST | Yes | Free |
| Scalar | Yes (client) | REST / OpenAPI | Yes | Free client |
| HTTPie | Yes | HTTP | Yes | Free |
| Karate | Yes | REST, SOAP, GraphQL | Yes (code) | $640/user/yr |
| ReadyAPI | No | REST, SOAP, GraphQL, Kafka | No | Quote |
| Requestly | Yes | REST, GraphQL | Partial | Free to 10 users |
1. Speedscale (proxymock)
This is us, so here’s the honest framing. proxymock records the real traffic your app sends and receives while you develop, then turns those recordings into mocks and replayable tests. There is no request builder to click through: the request you would have hand-built in Postman already happened in your app, and we captured it with the real headers, auth, and payload.
That flips the main Postman workflow. Postman collections drift away from what production actually does. Recorded traffic can’t. proxymock is a free CLI and desktop app, runs entirely on your machine with no Kubernetes and no account, imports Postman collections, and speaks MCP so coding agents can record and replay traffic while they work. Speedscale Cloud is the enterprise product: a Kubernetes operator captures traffic cluster-wide, replays it for load tests, and reports latency from P50 to P99 per endpoint. Capture is protocol-aware across HTTP, gRPC, Postgres, MySQL, and Redis, and DLP redaction scrubs PII before anything leaves your cluster.
Where it doesn’t fit: if you want to design a brand-new API from scratch, request by request, use one of the clients below. Pricing: proxymock is free; Cloud is priced on traffic volume with a free trial.
2. Bruno
Bruno is the tool people mean in 2026 when they say they left Postman. Collections are plain text files in the Bru markup, stored in your repo, versioned with git, reviewed in pull requests. It never asks you to sign in, and nothing leaves your machine unless you push it. It sits around 46k GitHub stars and shows up on every alternatives list I checked while updating this article.
The catch is protocol depth: the free client covers REST and GraphQL, while gRPC, WebSockets, and load testing live in the paid tiers. Pricing changed in 2025: the old $19 Golden Edition perpetual license is discontinued for new buyers (existing licenses still honored), replaced by Pro at $6/user/mo and Ultimate at $11/user/mo, billed annually. The core client and CLI are stated free forever.
3. Hoppscotch
Hoppscotch is the biggest project in the category at roughly 80k GitHub stars. It runs in the browser with nothing to install, covers REST, GraphQL, WebSocket, SSE, Socket.IO, and MQTT, and imports Postman collections. For teams that can’t send API definitions to a third-party cloud, the Community Edition self-hosts for free, which is the feature that gets it through security review.
Desktop apps and a CLI exist too, so it’s no longer browser-only. Pricing: the cloud version is free for individuals, the Organization plan is $6/user/mo billed annually, and a self-hosted Enterprise Edition with SSO and audit logs is quote-based.
4. Insomnia
Insomnia is the veteran here, maintained by Kong since 2019, at roughly 40k stars. It has the most polished editor experience of the open source clients and covers REST, GraphQL, gRPC, and WebSockets in the free tier. History you should know before adopting it: version 8.0 in 2023 forced account creation and cloud sync, and users revolted loudly enough that Kong restored fully local, end-to-end encrypted projects in 8.3. Local Vault projects now work without an account.
That episode is why Bruno and Yaak exist, and why local-first is the banner feature of this whole generation of tools. Pricing: free tier with 3 Git-sync users, Pro at $12/user/mo, Enterprise at $45/user/mo. Kong has announced a price increase effective August 2026, so check current numbers before you commit a team.
5. Yaak
Yaak is what Greg Schier, the original creator of Insomnia, built after leaving. It’s the Insomnia formula with the lessons applied: local-first storage, plain-file collections that diff cleanly in git, no account required, MIT-licensed code, roughly 19k stars and climbing fast. Protocol coverage is strong for a young client: REST, GraphQL, gRPC, WebSockets, and SSE.
If you liked Insomnia before version 8.0, this is the most direct successor. Pricing: free for personal use; commercial use is $79/yr per individual, $349 for a lifetime license, or $149/user/yr for business with SSO.
6. Apidog
Apidog is the all-in-one play: API design, documentation, mocking, and testing in a single app, closer to a like-for-like Postman replacement than the minimal clients above. It’s closed source and cloud-centric, which rules it out for the local-first crowd, but teams that want design and testing in one tool without stitching together a spec editor plus a client tend to like it.
Pricing: free for up to 4 users, then Basic $9, Professional $18, and Enterprise around $27 per user/mo.
7. Thunder Client
Thunder Client lives inside VS Code, which is still the fastest way to test an endpoint without leaving your editor. It stores data locally, imports Postman collections, and now ships a JetBrains plugin and CLI as well. Buyer beware on the license: it is proprietary, and features that used to be free have moved behind paid plans over the years, including collection runs, which are capped per month on lower tiers. Competitors openly market to its refugees.
Pricing: limited free tier; Starter $3/user/mo (max 10 seats, 250 collection runs/mo), Business $7, Enterprise $16 with SSO.
8. Kreya
Kreya, from Swiss company riok, is the gRPC specialist. Server reflection, all four streaming modes, and proto file management work the way you wish every client handled them, and it added REST, GraphQL, WebSocket, and SSE support so it can be your only client. Collections are local files, and the app is free for the core feature set.
It’s closed source, and the Pro and Enterprise tiers (offline licensing, flat-rate unlimited users) are quote-based. If your services are mostly gRPC, start here.
9. Restfox
Restfox is the minimal option: an MIT-licensed, offline-first REST client that runs on the web or as a desktop app, at about 2.7k stars. It skips the cloud and the account entirely, and the learning curve is close to zero. It’s the right answer when you want to send requests and read responses and you actively don’t want a platform.
Pricing: free, full stop.
10. Scalar
Scalar started as OpenAPI documentation and grew a full API client, open source and free at every tier, around 16k stars. The workflow is spec-first: your OpenAPI document renders as docs with a built-in client for trying every endpoint. If your team already maintains specs, this turns them into the testing surface instead of a separate collection to keep in sync.
Scalar charges for the docs platform (from $72/mo) while the client stays free. GraphQL and gRPC support are on the roadmap but not shipped, so treat it as a REST tool today.
11. HTTPie
HTTPie remains the nicest way to make an HTTP request from a terminal, with syntax you can remember and output you can read. It’s free, BSD-licensed, and sits at about 38k stars. I have to be straight about the trajectory though: the CLI’s last release was in late 2024, and the desktop app hasn’t moved much since early 2025. It works fine, and curl outlived everything by moving slowly too, but don’t expect new features.
For scripting and CI pipelines where you’d otherwise write curl, it’s still an easy recommendation.
12. Karate
Karate is in a different category from the GUI clients: it’s a test automation framework where API tests are code, written in a Gherkin-style DSL, run from the command line or CI. That makes it the wrong tool for poking at an endpoint and the right tool when API tests need to be versioned, reviewed, and gated in a pipeline. It covers REST, SOAP, and GraphQL, with performance testing built on the same tests, at about 9k stars.
The open source framework is free. Karate Labs sells Pro at $640/user/yr and an Enterprise tier with SSO and air-gapped deployment.
13. ReadyAPI
ReadyAPI is SmartBear’s enterprise API testing suite, built on SoapUI’s lineage, covering functional, security, and load testing across REST, SOAP, GraphQL, and Kafka. In 2025 SmartBear folded it into their API Hub platform (the same rebrand absorbed SwaggerHub), so expect the product name to keep shifting. It remains the tool you’ll meet in large QA organizations with SOAP still in the building.
Pricing is quote-based, and third-party estimates range so widely that I won’t print a number. Budget for enterprise software.
14. Requestly
Requestly comes at the problem from HTTP interception: it started as a browser-level tool for rewriting and mocking requests, added a full API client, and was acquired by BrowserStack in May 2025. The interception angle makes it useful for frontend teams who need to mock every API a page calls under the hood, which classic request builders handle poorly. It’s open source at about 7k stars.
Pricing: free for up to 10 collaborators; enterprise tiers add SSO and RBAC.
How to choose
For an individual developer replacing Postman today, try Bruno first, then Yaak if you want broader protocol support in the free tier. For a security-conscious team, self-hosted Hoppscotch or Bruno with git-versioned collections keeps API definitions inside your walls. For gRPC-heavy services, Kreya. For tests that live in CI rather than in a GUI, Karate or your existing test framework.
And if your actual problem is that hand-built collections never match what production does, that’s the problem we built Speedscale for. Record real traffic with proxymock, replay it as tests, and mock your dependencies from recordings instead of writing stubs. You can try it free, and the CLI stays free either way.
Also check out: Postman load testing tutorial and our guide to API testing tools.