{"slug": "postman", "name": "Postman", "category": "other", "category_name": "Other software", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 9, "warners": 4, "score": -0.399, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2026-02-22", "latest": "2026-10-31", "why": "VS Code, Slack, Postman, Obsidian.. I use this software every day", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 2, "compare": 0, "warn": 4}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "VS Code, Slack, Postman, Obsidian.. I use this software every day", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.postman.com", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Postman"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 780888179, "item_id": 48805511, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48805511", "by": "seabrookmx", "date": "2026-07-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "VS Code, Slack, Postman, Obsidian.. I use this software every day", "excerpt": "I don't understand why people care about Electron? Evaluate the quality of the software based on its own merits IMO. VS Code, Slack, Postman, Obsidian.. I use this software every day and my only complaint is Slack's RAM usage (which honestly has no negative effect on my machine, but just seems silly for a messaging app). Claude is a buggy mess because it's slop, not because it's electron. Heck, it runs a full Linux V", "context": "", "use_case": "daily use", "switched_from": "", "story": "Anthropic's Method to Losing Goodwill in a Few Easy Steps"}, {"id": 763341584, "item_id": 47708849, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47708849", "by": "igtumt", "date": "2026-04-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "tools like Postman make sense", "excerpt": "I was thinking about things like POST/PUT requests, adding headers or auth, maybe testing flows. For that, tools like Postman make sense. But for quick checks like \u201cwhat does this return?\u201d, I usually just want to check and move on.", "context": "", "use_case": "complex API requests and test flows", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What you use for quick API checks?"}, {"id": 763247408, "item_id": 47702963, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47702963", "by": "nikolasdimi", "date": "2026-04-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "postman is great for complex stuff", "excerpt": "postman is great for complex stuff - what kind of complex stuff?", "context": "", "use_case": "complex API testing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What you use for quick API checks?"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 805103025, "item_id": 50318939, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50318939", "by": "pull_my_finger", "date": "2026-10-31", "stance": "warn", "quote": "postman, insomnia, bruno all followed the same free -> freemium bait and switch", "excerpt": "Absolutely unwarranted gatekeeping and bashing in this thread for the most benign reason. I think it looks neat. The API client space definitely needs some new FOSS entries after postman, insomnia, bruno all followed the same free -> freemium bait and switch way too common in dev tooling. Paywalling features that are already or previously implemented is a gross move, and feels especially egregious in the tooling spac", "context": "", "use_case": "API client", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Ghostman \u2013 A fast, keyboard-driven TUI API client and webhook inspector"}, {"id": 764683568, "item_id": 47792723, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47792723", "by": "Leomuck", "date": "2026-04-16", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Enshittification at its best. I used Postman for several years before it become unusable for me.", "excerpt": "Enshittification at its best. I used Postman for several years before it become unusable for me. Didn't actually think too much about it, tried several alternatives (ApiDog, Bruno), but none came to the comfort Postman gave me before that. Now I understand if engineers spend lots of time on software, somehow they need to get paid. But I still believe, there is a more authentic and acceptable path than what most compa", "context": "", "use_case": "API debugging", "switched_from": "", "story": "The API Tooling Crisis: Why developers are abandoning Postman and its clones?"}, {"id": 763248321, "item_id": 47703020, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47703020", "by": "dhruv3006", "date": "2026-04-09", "stance": "warn", "quote": "the monolithic nature of tools like Postman feels way too heavy", "excerpt": "Yeah, I know what you mean. I still use curl sometimes,but for anything beyond a basic GET, the monolithic nature of tools like Postman feels way too heavy. I recommend checking out Voiden, - all Markdown files and uses composable blocks, this makes it easy for quick, version-controlled tests. Good for the \"quick checks\" but also for more advanced workflows (collection runner, scripting etc).", "context": "", "use_case": "API testing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What you use for quick API checks?"}, {"id": 753779041, "item_id": 47111190, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47111190", "by": "skaluvuri", "date": "2026-02-22", "stance": "warn", "quote": "No need for Postman's Postbot or whatever AI solution the tools are locking the users into", "excerpt": "I agree that AI has dramatically lowered the cost of production and it becomes super easy for small teams to spin up \u201cgood enough\u201d systems for API testing, documentation, compliance, or cost monitoring. But where things are still hard is maintaining that tool, security, reliability, UX, integrations, and long-term tool evolution - especially when its not core to their business. Those don\u2019t disappear just because the ", "context": "", "use_case": "API testing", "switched_from": "", "story": "The API Tooling Crisis"}]}], "who": [{"by": "pmontra", "context": "consultant; a customer uses Postman for API docs", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47792494", "date": "2026-04-16"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["api client", "api testing", "daily use", "api debugging", "editing api docs", "complex api requests and test flows"], "compared": [{"slug": "bruno", "name": "Bruno", "co": 7, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 2}, {"slug": "voiden", "name": "Voiden", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "curl", "name": "curl", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47702132", "title": "Ask HN: What you use for quick API checks?", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47792380", "title": "The API Tooling Crisis: Why developers are abandoning Postman and its clones?", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50300902", "title": "Show HN: Ghostman \u2013 A fast, keyboard-driven TUI API client and webhook inspector", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48803751", "title": "Anthropic's Method to Losing Goodwill in a Few Easy Steps", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47779554", "title": "Show HN: Voiden \u2013 API Workflows as Markdown Files (Obsidian \u00d7 Curl)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47110542", "title": "The API Tooling Crisis", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"warn": 1}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 2, "warn": 2, "neutral": 2}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"warn": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 805103025, "item_id": 50318939, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50318939", "by": "pull_my_finger", "date": "2026-10-31", "stance": "warn", "quote": "postman, insomnia, bruno all followed the same free -> freemium bait and switch", "excerpt": "Absolutely unwarranted gatekeeping and bashing in this thread for the most benign reason. I think it looks neat. The API client space definitely needs some new FOSS entries after postman, insomnia, bruno all followed the same free -> freemium bait and switch way too common in dev tooling. Paywalling features that are already or previously implemented is a gross move, and feels especially egregious in the tooling spac", "context": "", "use_case": "API client", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Ghostman \u2013 A fast, keyboard-driven TUI API client and webhook inspector"}, {"id": 780888179, "item_id": 48805511, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48805511", "by": "seabrookmx", "date": "2026-07-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "VS Code, Slack, Postman, Obsidian.. I use this software every day", "excerpt": "I don't understand why people care about Electron? Evaluate the quality of the software based on its own merits IMO. VS Code, Slack, Postman, Obsidian.. I use this software every day and my only complaint is Slack's RAM usage (which honestly has no negative effect on my machine, but just seems silly for a messaging app). Claude is a buggy mess because it's slop, not because it's electron. Heck, it runs a full Linux V", "context": "", "use_case": "daily use", "switched_from": "", "story": "Anthropic's Method to Losing Goodwill in a Few Easy Steps"}, {"id": 764683568, "item_id": 47792723, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47792723", "by": "Leomuck", "date": "2026-04-16", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Enshittification at its best. I used Postman for several years before it become unusable for me.", "excerpt": "Enshittification at its best. I used Postman for several years before it become unusable for me. Didn't actually think too much about it, tried several alternatives (ApiDog, Bruno), but none came to the comfort Postman gave me before that. Now I understand if engineers spend lots of time on software, somehow they need to get paid. But I still believe, there is a more authentic and acceptable path than what most compa", "context": "", "use_case": "API debugging", "switched_from": "", "story": "The API Tooling Crisis: Why developers are abandoning Postman and its clones?"}, {"id": 764679904, "item_id": 47792494, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47792494", "by": "pmontra", "date": "2026-04-16", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Basically I use it only to edit the documentation.", "excerpt": "A customer of mine uses Postman for its API docs. I never use it to run API calls. I curl to the server from the terminal. I keep a file with the most common sequences and I can add -d @request.json much more easily than from within Postman. Basically I use it only to edit the documentation.", "context": "consultant; a customer uses Postman for API docs", "use_case": "editing API docs", "switched_from": "", "story": "The API Tooling Crisis: Why developers are abandoning Postman and its clones?"}, {"id": 764488002, "item_id": 47780500, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47780500", "by": "mkubler", "date": "2026-04-15", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I no longer need my Postman subscription.", "excerpt": "I've been using Voiden for a while and had a few changes I recommended. The team made them within 24 hours! I bugged them for about a week with various suggested changes and they kept smashing out banger after banger, also adding in Multiple requests per file and various other fairly large changes at the same time. I no longer need my Postman subscription. Git + Voiden is where it's at.", "context": "", "use_case": "API client", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Voiden \u2013 API Workflows as Markdown Files (Obsidian \u00d7 Curl)"}, {"id": 763341584, "item_id": 47708849, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47708849", "by": "igtumt", "date": "2026-04-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "tools like Postman make sense", "excerpt": "I was thinking about things like POST/PUT requests, adding headers or auth, maybe testing flows. For that, tools like Postman make sense. But for quick checks like \u201cwhat does this return?\u201d, I usually just want to check and move on.", "context": "", "use_case": "complex API requests and test flows", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What you use for quick API checks?"}, {"id": 763248321, "item_id": 47703020, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47703020", "by": "dhruv3006", "date": "2026-04-09", "stance": "warn", "quote": "the monolithic nature of tools like Postman feels way too heavy", "excerpt": "Yeah, I know what you mean. I still use curl sometimes,but for anything beyond a basic GET, the monolithic nature of tools like Postman feels way too heavy. I recommend checking out Voiden, - all Markdown files and uses composable blocks, this makes it easy for quick, version-controlled tests. Good for the \"quick checks\" but also for more advanced workflows (collection runner, scripting etc).", "context": "", "use_case": "API testing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What you use for quick API checks?"}, {"id": 763247408, "item_id": 47702963, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47702963", "by": "nikolasdimi", "date": "2026-04-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "postman is great for complex stuff", "excerpt": "postman is great for complex stuff - what kind of complex stuff?", "context": "", "use_case": "complex API testing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What you use for quick API checks?"}, {"id": 753779041, "item_id": 47111190, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47111190", "by": "skaluvuri", "date": "2026-02-22", "stance": "warn", "quote": "No need for Postman's Postbot or whatever AI solution the tools are locking the users into", "excerpt": "I agree that AI has dramatically lowered the cost of production and it becomes super easy for small teams to spin up \u201cgood enough\u201d systems for API testing, documentation, compliance, or cost monitoring. But where things are still hard is maintaining that tool, security, reliability, UX, integrations, and long-term tool evolution - especially when its not core to their business. Those don\u2019t disappear just because the ", "context": "", "use_case": "API testing", "switched_from": "", "story": "The API Tooling Crisis"}]}