Software Development Updates

In today’s time, offering highly secured applications to the end-users is necessary. As APIs play a vital role in the formation and execution of cloud applications and interconnected platforms, organizations prefer to use API(Application Programming Interface) testing tools that can secure the applications in the best way possible. There are many different services that users utilize that rely on multiple interconnected APIs, so if there is an issue in one service, the entire application gets affected. So, to ensure that APIs perform as expected, software testing companies prefer to perform API tests using various tools. In this blog, we will go through some of the widely used API testing tools.

1. Checklist for Choosing the Best API Testing Tools

There are some exceptional API testing tools available in the market. As the number of tools available in the market is huge, the software testing team needs to try out some and then choose the most preferable one as per the project requirement. For choosing the best API testing tool, here is the checklist that can be followed –

• Basic API Requirements: One of the most important things to consider while choosing the right API testing tool for any project is the basic API requirements. This means that the developer needs to check whether the tool supports the majority of the HTTP requests and does it allows the import of settings and artifacts.
• Non-technical Friendly: Documentation tools must be read properly to check whether the tool is easy to understand for non-technical users or not.
• CI/CD Integration: Another thing to check while choosing the best API testing tool for your project is CI/CD integration. In this case, the software testers need to check the potential of the tools to see if they can work smoothly with CI systems or not.
• Complexity: The main reason behind checking the tool’s complexity is to ensure that the team’s skill sets are enough to use the chosen tool and if not, then the team will have to catch up on some complexities.
• Interoperability: Interoperability is an aspect that is checked to see whether the tool is able to connect with other platforms like Jira, Slack, and Git.

2. Best API Testing Tools

Now, after learning about API testing tools and having a look at their checklist, let’s go through some of the popular API testing tools available in the market.

2.1 ReadyAPI

ReadyAPI is an API test tool that is designed to streamline the testing workflows. It is a no-code platform that comes with features that enable testers to test SOAP, RESTful, GraphSQL, and other web services. With SmartBear’s ReadyAPI platform, the testing team can check the application’s security, functionality, and load. There are a few tools available within ReadyAPI that can be used for performing API security testing, API functional testing, API and web virtualization and API performance testing. With the use of this platform, the development team can guarantee the quality of all web services.

Feature

Some of the best features of ReadyAPI are-

• ReadyAPI offers parallel execution capabilities for the testing team to perform functional tests along with job queues.
• ReadyAPI natively supports Jenkins, Git, Docker, Azure, and more.
• With the help of this tool, the testing team can easily create bulk assertions against a huge number of APIs with its feature called Smart Assertion.
• ReadyAPI offers command-line support for automated testing.
• With ReadyAPI, one can easily remove dependencies during application testing and development.
• This tool also provides features and functionalities that enable software testing teams to carry out functional API testing by reusing functional tests.

Price

The ReadyAPI tool offers different pricing options the ReadyAPI Test plan starts at $659 per year, the ReadyAPI Virtualization plan starts at $1199 per year, the ReadyAPI Performance plan starts at $5999 per year, and the ReadyAPI Custom plan is charged as per the client’s requirements. It also offers 14 days for a free trial.

2.2 Postman

Another popular tool used for API testing is Postman. It was originally a Google Chrome plug-in. With time, this tool has grown into becoming one of the widely used API testing tools. The main aim of this tool is to offer API testing services to different operating systems. This is known as the best tool for exploratory or manual testing of the application. It also helps the testing teams monitor the APIs, debug the application, automate tests, and run requests. It offers great features for testing APIs.

Feature

Some of the best features of Postman are-

• Postman is a testing tool that enables software testing companies to write Boolean tests without using a command line.
• It enables support for methods like Swagger and RESTful API Modeling Language. 
• This is an easy-to-use REST client.
• With the help of this tool, testers can easily extract API data.
• It consists of built-in tools that allow testing teams to create smooth interaction with APIs, enable debugging, monitoring of APIs, and more.

Price

The Postman testing tool offers three pricing plans. The first plan is for free, it can be used by individuals and small teams. The second plan is known as Postman Pro which costs $8 every month per user. The third plan called Postman Enterprise costs $18 every month per user.

2.3 Katalon

Katalon is a highly popular API testing tool available for free in the market. It enables companies to offer the best software testing services to clients by automatically testing clients’ websites and mobile applications. It can be used to test APIs and web services.

This tool makes it easier for both the developers and testers to set up API testing. In addition to this, the Katalon API testing tool stands out in the market because of its versatile and user-friendly solution for automating tests. This tool streamlines the testing process and makes it efficient for anyone to ensure the quality and functionality of web services and applications.

Features

Some of the best features of Katalon are –

• Katalon is an API testing tool that supports AssertJ, one of the best assertion libraries.
• With this tool, the testing teams can easily integrate UI and API/Web services with other platforms like Mac OS, Windows, and Linux.
• It supports various commands and functions along with REST (Representational State Transfer) and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) requests.
• Katalon offers a data-driven approach.
• With the help of this tool, testers can perform both automated and exploratory testing.

Price

The basic plan of Katalon is free, the Premium plan costs $167 per month, and the Ultimate plan is customizable so it costs as per the requirements.

2.4 SoapUI

SoapUI is one of the best tools for testing computer programs. It is preferred by testing teams to test SOAP and REST, which are ways that programs talk to each other. SoapUI works like a headless API testing tool that can help in creating and executing regression, automated, load, and functional testing. With the help of SoapUI’s user-friendly graphical interface, testers can perform UI testing with ease. Besides, this tool supports api testing for various protocols and technologies to enable software development teams to test all types of APIs.

Feature

Some of the best features of SoapUI are –

• One of the best features of SoapUI is that it offers point-and-click and drag-and-drop functionality.
• SoapUI is a testing tool that supports data-driven testing.
• The user of SoapUI can easily access the complete source code of any application.
• With SoapUI, the testers can simulate how consumers may interact with the APIs.
• This tool supports JMS (Java Messaging Protocol), REST (Representational State Transfer), JDBC (Java Database Connectivity), SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), and many other protocols.

Price

The API Test Module Plan of this tool starts from $895 annually, the API Performance Module Plan starts from $7308 annually, and the API Virtualization Module Plan starts from $1374 annually.

2.5 Apigee

Another popular API testing tool in our list is Apigee. It is a cross-cloud API testing tool by Google. This tool is used to develop and manage APIs. With the help of the Apigee tool, the users can leverage external editors like Swagger that enable the testers to assess, construct, test, and maintain APIs. Besides this, Apigee has features such as Open API 3.0 support, TLS (Transport Layer Security) security, virtual host management, and expanded software support. This API test tool not only facilitates the development and configuration of API packages but also enables the development teams to manage revenue models, handle payment gateways, generate reports, and integrate with developer portals.

Feature

Some of the best features of Apigee are –

• Apigee is a tool that offers a customizable developer portal along with Node.js support.
• With the help of this tool, one can track API traffic, response times, and error rates to identify performance-related issues.
• This tool can be used for private cloud, public cloud, and hybrid deployment models.
• Testers use Apigee as it enables them to easily create and deploy API proxies in the cloud.
• Apigee enables testers to handle APIs that contain huge amounts of data.

Price

This tool offers an enterprise-level plan that is customizable and its price depends on the requirements.

2.6 Karate DSL

Karate DSL is one of the best API testing tools available in the market. It enables the testing teams to carry out various tasks like automation testing, performance testing, mocks, and load testing. Generally, creating tests for APIs can be a bit difficult but with the help of Karate DSL, the software testing teams can easily write test cases and other instructions for developers. Besides, this Intuit product is an exceptional tool for automated API testing. With this tool, one doesn’t have to learn to code as it only requires a bit of knowledge of technologies like JSONPath, JSON, HTTP, XML, and XPath.

Feature

Some of the best features of Karate DSL are –

• Karate DSL enables the testing teams to write in almost any language with JSON, HTTP, or XML.
• It enables the users to reuse user-defined functions and payload data across tests.
• Karate DSL supports staging and switching and staging along with parallel multi-threading execution.
• This tool offers powerful assertion capabilities.
• With the help of this API test tool, testing and generating reports becomes an easy task.
• To work with this tool, programming skills are not required.

Price

The plan for this tool starts from $64.

2.7 JMeter

JMeter is an open-source tool by Apache that enables testing teams to check an application’s performance. It was originally made to load test the software solution and with time, it got upgraded and now it is also used unit-test tool to test JDBC database connections. This tool offers a lot of API testing features. The JMeter version 5.4 was released in December 2020, which came with enhancements in finding errors and bugs along with features for testing the applications in modern ways.

Feature

Some of the best features of JMeter are –

• With the help of JMeter, testing teams can perform tests for both dynamic and static resources.
• The API testing tool is one of the most flexible solutions available in the market for testers to customize the tests as per their project’s requirements.
• JMeter can be easily integrated with Jenkins in order to perform tests within CI pipelines.
• With JMeter, testers can perform load and performance tests for different types of servers.
• It is the best tool for working with CSV files, and it also enables the testing teams to create unique testing parameter values.

Price

This is an open-source tool, so it is available for free.

2.8 Tricentis Tosca

With the help of Tricentis Tosca, the API testing team can bring continuous testing into Agile and DevOps. This API testing tool supports AMQP (Advanced Message Queuing Protocol), HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), and many other protocols. With the help of this testing tool, the software development teams can get access to various aspects of software testing like automation, test case design, analytics, and data generation. In order to analyze GUIs and APIs for any organization’s application, these testing aspects can be used. Besides this, the Tricentis Tosco tool offers various functionalities to ensure an effective test management process.

Feature

Some of the best features of Tricentis Tosco are –

• This tool offers end-to-end testing which enables the testers to carry out API tests across packaged applications, cross-browser applications, and mobile applications.
• With the help of this tool, testers can simplify script maintenance and maximize the reuse of scripts.
• Test managers can easily perform manual testing while working with this tool without any requirement to set up Tosca environments.
• This tool ensures regression testing most quickly and effectively.
• It also enables sustainable automation.

Price

This tool offers customizable plans so the pricing depends on the requirements.

2.9 API Fortress

Another popular API testing tool in our list is API Fortress. This tool offers features for creating, executing, and automating both functional and automation testing. With the help of this tool, API testing teams can monitor both SOAP and REST. API Fortress is easy to use and exceptional at offering unique features.

Feature

Some of the best features of API Fortress are –

• This is a web-based collaborative tool that enables API testers to work within a web browser.
• It offers plug-and-play simulation for carrying out continuous API Testing.
• This tool offers an easy-to-use intuitive UI.
• With this tool, the testers get support for Test SOAP, REST, Web Services, GraphQL, and Microservices.

Price

The plan for this tool starts from $119. It also offers a free trial.

2.10 Reflect

Reflect is one of the widely used API testing tools. It is an AI-powered automated regression testing tool that enables the testing teams to carry out API testing with its built-in features. With the help of this tool, testers can easily create end-to-end tests and can perform API tests along with UI tests. This tool enables the testing team members to contribute to the testing effort by adopting a no-code approach. Reflect enables the creation of API tests with the help of REST, JSON, XML, and GraphQL. With this tool, validating results through API validations, setting up direct API calls with tests, and much more is possible.

Features

Some of the best features of Reflect are –

• This tool enables the functional testers to create regression tests faster than the automation engineer, with no complicated setup requirements.
• API testers can create end-to-end tests faster than code-based frameworks using Reflect.
• With the help of this tool, comprehensive integrations for CI/CD, test case management, and issue tracking are possible.

Price

The basic version of Reflect is available for free, the Team plan charges $200 per month, the Professional plan charges $500 per month, and the Reflect AI plan is customizable as it offers unlimited test runs and AI actions, which cost as per the custom features.

2.11 REST-assured

REST-assured is a popular API testing tool. It is considered when the testers are planning to test RESTful services in Java. This is a widely used open-source platform. This API testing tool offers Java domain-specific languages which makes it easier for the testing teams to check the REST services. It is mostly used to test JSON and XML-based applications.

Feature

Some of the best features of REST-assured are –

• This tool supports all HTTP methods along with several types of commands, like DELETE, PUT, POST, GET, PATCH, and OPTIONS.
• Testers prefer to use this tool because of its in-built functionalities.
• REST-assured supports the seamless integration.
• With the help of this tool, testers can get access to various authentication methods.

Price

This tool offers customizable plans, so its price depends on the requirements.

2.12 Swagger.io

Another widely used API testing tool is Swagger. It is a tool that enables the testers with the entire lifecycle of an API. With the help of this testing tool, the API testers are able to carry out performance, functional, and security testing of API. The Swagger Inspector allows developers and QA team members to manually explore and validate the APIs that are present on the cloud. Besides this, performance and load testing can be performed using this tool via LoadUI Pro. While working on this tool, testers can reuse the functional tests of SoapUI.

Features

Some of the best features of Swagger are –

• This tool offers unique features for both API designing and development.
• While working with Swagger, testers get access to API Documentation which enables them to test the APIs efficiently.
• API Testing with the latest techniques is possible with this tool.
• Swagger enables API Mocking and Virtualization.
• With this tool, API Governance and monitoring are also possible.

Price

This tool offers three plans. The first one is a basic plan which is for free, the second is the Team plan which costs $30 per month, for two users (one can increase the number of users by paying extra), and the third plan is an Enterprise plan which is for 25 or more team members and it’s cost depends on the company’s requirements.

2.13 Insomnia

Insomnia is a popular API testing tool that is managed by Kong. This tool is preferred by API testing teams when they want to test the APIs for different types of applications. It works similarly to Postman.

Features

Some of the best features of Insomnia are –

• Insomnia tool comes with an installer which means that it is easy to install and work on.
• With the help of this tool, testers can perform both manual and automated testing.
• It is an easy-to-use tool.
• Insomnia supports the creation of new custom plugins and enables the generation of code snipped.
• API testers use this tool as it offers responses for JSON, XML, and other documentation types.

Price

The basic plan for this tool is free, the Individual Plan is $5 per user per month, the Team Plan is $12 per user per month, and the Enterprise Plan is $45 per user per month.

2.14 HttpMaster

Another popular API testing tool that is used by testers in today’s time is HttpMaster. It is a web development tool that enables the testers to automate web application testing. It allows service testing, API testing, and website testing. API testing teams use this tool as it automates the testing of web API calls.

Features

Some of the best features of HttpMaster are –

• It is a tool that allows testing several HTTP methods like DELETE, GET, and POST.
• With the help of this tool, various advanced validation types and expressions can be tested.
• HttpMaster provides dynamic parameters that help in creating batches for different API requests while testing them.

Price

HttpMaster tool costs $99 per single license.

2.15 Assertible

Assertible is one such API testing tool that not only offers easy-to-use features but also provides reliable API performance monitoring and uptime. This tool is used by software testing companies to conduct continuous testing on web services and APIs while focusing on its automation and reliability. With the help of this tool’s exceptional features like tokens, storing passwords, and secret fields, it has been easy for the testers to offer encrypted applications. 

Feature

Some of the best features of Assertible are –

• Assertible is a tool that offers integrations with platforms like Zapier, GitHub, and Slack.
• With the help of this tool, testers can execute API tests after deployment as well.
• It offers support for automation API testing at every stage starting from continuous integration to the delivery pipeline.
• This tool offers the Sync feature which eliminates the requirement to manually update tests after changing the API response.
• It offers support for the validation of HTTP responses.

Price

The personal plan is free, the standard plan is $25 per month, the startup plan is $50 per month, and the business plan is $100 per month.

2.16 Hoppscotch

Hoppscotch is an open-source, free, API testing tool. It enables testers with REST API testing through the GUI API client. With the help of this tool, testing teams can write test cases easily as it offers a minimalistic and less distracting interface. This tool enables software testing teams to group and save all the HTTP requests that belong to a single API and logically organize them. Besides, with the help of this tool, software developers can efficiently create HTTP requests in a step-by-step manner.

Features

Some of the best features of Hoppscotch are –

• It is an open-source and lightweight API testing tool.
• With this tool, testers can get cross-platform support.
• Hoppscotch is a self-hostable and free-to-use testing platform.

Price

It is an open-source tool, so it is free to use.

2.17 ACCELQ

Another unique API testing tool is ACCELQ. It offers different design and maintenance aspects of the test automation life cycle. With the help of this tool, testers can get intuitiveness and comprehensiveness. As it is a cloud-based continuous testing platform, it has the capability to offer a codeless test automation approach. Besides this, it also offers various capabilities for test automation and management.

Feature

Some of the best features of ACCELQ are –

• It enables testers to guarantee reliable test execution. 
• With the help of ACCELQ, automated API testing is possible without any requirement to write a single line of code.
• This API testing tool ensures seamless integration between APIs and business processes.
• ACCELQ testing tool automatically generates test cases using Artificial Intelligence.

Price

It offers Automate Web, Automate Mobile, Automate API, and Automate Manual plans for custom use so its charges depend on the requirements.

2.18 Airborne

Airborne is another popular API testing tool. It is one of the best API automation and programming tools that is used by software testing teams for checking REST APIs. With the help of this Ruby-based RSpec-driven tool, testing teams can easily meet their project testing requirements. Besides, this tool uses RestClient for handling HTTP requests which is a plus.

Feature

Some of the best features of Airborne are –

• The Airborne API testing tool is the most compatible with Rack applications.
• Airborne must be used by testers who are ready to remember a few key toolset methods.
• This tool has no user interface, it uses a text file to create code.
• Airborne is compatible with APIs written in Rails.

Price

It is an open-source tool so it is free to use.

2.19 Appium

Appium is another API testing tool that is designed to test mobile applications. It is an open-source automated testing tool that offers support for API testing for applications on different platforms like mobile web, iOS, and Android native. This tool can also be used by developers. 

Features

Some of the best features of Appium are –

• Appium supports programming languages, like Ruby, Java, Python, C#, and more.
• API testing teams use this tool because of its excellent Appium strength.
• This tool offers simple web test automation services by using WebDriver API.
• While executing test cases using this tool, the connection between Xcode’s tools and Appium’s server remains highly secured.

Price

It is an open-source tool so it is free to use.

2.20 Pyresttest

The last API testing tool in our list is Pyresttest. It is a Python-based testing tool that is used for testing RESTful APIs. It is a micro-benchmarking tool that supports configuration files like JSON and YAML for tests. This tool is compatible with platforms like Mac and Linux along with Python versions 2.6, 2.7, and 3.3.2.

Feature

Some of the best features of Pyresttest are –

• With this tool, testers can easily create full test scenarios by generating, extracting, and validating techniques.
• This is an easy-to-use tool.
• It offers easy-to-deploy mechanics as its minimal dependencies use smoke testing.
• To use the Pyresttest tool, no coding skills are required,

Price

It is an open-source tool so it is free to use.

3. Conclusion

As seen in this blog, there are many different types of API testing tools available in the market that offer unique testing services and web API functionalities. Using these tools is easy, some of them require basic technical knowledge while some can be used by non-technical users too. All the API testing tools mentioned in this article offer the best features. But there is no one-size-fits-all platform as every company has different requirements as per the type of projects they work on. Therefore, when any software development company or software testing team of any organization plans to get a tool for the firm, proper research and understanding of different tools is necessary.