What tools do you use to test your public REST API?

Question

Looking for tools use to test REST API.

So far I'm only aware of SoapUI. I've tried SOAPUI but - at least in a mac - it's terrible.

Wondering what people are using to test their own APIs.

Solution 1

If you're just testing your APIs manually, we've found RestClient 2.3 or the Poster add-on for Firefox to be pretty helpful. Both of these let you build requests that GET, PUT, POST, or DELETE. You can save these requests to rerun later.

For simple automated testing try the Linux (or Cygwin) 'curl' command in a shell script.

From something more industrial strength you can move up to Apache JMeter. JMeter is great for load testing.

31 October 2014: HTTPRequester is now a better choice for Firefox.

July 2015: Postman is a good choice for Chrome

Solution 2

Postman in the chrome store is simple but powerful.

Solution 3

I use http://hurl.it/

Ha. Sorry, I mis-read your post. I've used cucumber to test it before. It worked out nicely.

Solution 4

We are using Groovy to test our RestFUL API, using a series of helper functions to build the xml put/post/gets and then a series of tests on the nodes of the XML to check that the data is manipulated correctly.

We use Poster (for Firefox, Chrome seems to be lacking a similar tool) for hand testing single areas, or simply to poll the API at times when we need to create further tests, or check the status of things.

Solution 5

We're planning to use FitNesse, with the RestFixture. We haven't started writing our tests yet, our newest tester got things up and running last week, however he has used FitNesse for this in his last company, so we know it's a reasonable setup for what we want to do.

More info available here: http://smartrics.blogspot.com/2008/08/get-fitnesse-with-some-rest.html

View more solutions

Comments

[dscape]

Thanks Jimmy. The way I see it cucumber is designed to test code, not web-services. Something more specific, not language specific would be great. Kind of like CouchDB that allows you to run tests in the browser thru their futon interface.

[dscape]

Thanks Jim! I'm currently using cURL and some bash scripts but wanted to just have the tests saved in one place (like a json or xml file that I can put in /tests/ directory of my app) and then something that allow me to re-run those tests while I develop. Will test Poster and RestClient

[theCesspit]

Chrome now has XHR Poster that works like Poster but has some nice extra features as well.

[Stephan]

Here is a list of tools like hurl.it.

[Joxi]

Fiddler is a great tool, but it's not really an alternative to SOAPUI, such as Postman or HttpMaster. Otherwise I agree that the best way to create integration tests is to roll your own scripts (if you have the time and energy, of course).

[kylebebak]

I wrote a REST client plugin called Requester for Sublime Text, github.com/kylebebak/Requester. It's inspired by HTTPie and Postman. It's very powerful and easy to use, and it's cross-platform. If you're not in love with your HTTP client it's definitely worth a try.

[AbuTaareq]

I was playing with SOAP UI but I like the Postman for windows better now. I can test my API even at IIS Express while debugging at Visual Studio. SOAP UI did not allow me to test using IIS Express.

[Jerome L]

Insomnia Rest is also a good alternative: octoperf.com/blog/2018/03/22/api-testing-tools/#insomnia

[MonTea]

hurl.it is not available anymore … @Jimmy Baker

[Jimmy Baker]

@MonTea yeah, this answer is ~10 years old. hurl.it was awesome. Postman is a great option in 2021.