Modern software has a complex multilayered architecture, though users don’t always pay attention. Take a look at food delivery services, for example. You need up to a few minutes to find a restaurant and place the order – that’s usually less time than users spend on deciding what to eat.
But before the order gets to you, the app manages to communicate with a restaurant to check the availability and place a request, view the map to find drivers nearby, then contact a driver to provide your order details. And don’t forget about integrations with payment systems, chatting apps, and other auxiliary tools.
Users take seamless communication between these systems for granted. In the end, this is what an app is supposed to do, why should we be impressed? But you already know that these systems are able to work so well together because of APIs and API testing services that enabke their correct work.
Check out one of our previous articles if you need a reminder about the API testing benefits. And if you don’t need one, it’s time to learn more about the testing process, specifically about tools.
What to consider when choosing tools for API testing? Start with the most obvious thing: tool popularity. The most widely-used tools are usually the most reliable and functional ones. Then, decide on the following:
To make it easier to choose, we’ve come up with a shortlist of widely-used tools for manual and automated API testing.
The tool is positioned as a collaboration platform for API development. It simplifies and facilitates the process of building an API. Postman is a good choice for those who don’t want to deal with integrated development using the same language as developers.
Highlights:
Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux, Chrome browser-plugin.
Pricing: a free version and three paid plans.
This tool is completely dedicated to API testing. The platform provides a list of resources that help you get started with API testing. SoapUI is used by many world-leading tech companies, including Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, NASA, and Cisco.
Highlights:
Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux.
Pricing: free and pro versions available.
Katalon is better known as a tool for GUI test automation, but it is also used in exploratory testing – API testing, in particular.
Katalon is a perfect tool for beginners since it is easy to set up and learn. This tool was featured as one of 2020 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choices, receiving over 600 positive reviews.
Highlights:
Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux.
Pricing: a free version and two paid plans.
To start with, you can find two variants of spelling – REST Assured and REST-assured; both are used even on the official website. Nevertheless, this doesn’t change the fact that REST Assured is one of the most widely used API automation testing tools that greatly simplifies the check of Java domain services.
Highlights:
Programming language: Java.
Pricing: open source.
Frisby is a testing framework built on Node.js and Jasmine for easy and fast testing of API endpoints. It requires minimum setup to run a test and can run tests in parallel.
Highlights:
Programming language: JavaScript.
Pricing: open source.
CodeceptJS is a multi-backend tool for end-to-end testing and one more tool for JavaScript API testing. The tests are easy to create since they are written as a sequence of actions from a user perspective. In addition to simplicity and functionality, users get beautiful reports.
Highlights:
Programming language: JavaScript.
Pricing: open source.
Requests is an HTTP library for Python – a pre-configured collection of routines, functions, and operations a program can use. So what is it doing on this list? Created by enthusiasts and developed by everyone willing to contribute, it makes HTTP requests human-friendly, and API testing with Python becomes highly efficient.
Requests package provides a set of commands you can use efficiently to examine communication between different systems. Users don’t have to add query strings to URLs manually or form-encode your POST data, and the commands don’t slow down the application under test. Thus, API automation using Python might be the simplest way to run tests.
Highlights:
Programming language: Python.
Pricing: open source.
RestSharp is one more HTTP client library – the most popular one for .NET framework. It allows quickly accessing API data, leaving out the complexity of dealing with raw HTTP requests. Though used mainly by OSS projects, RestSharp has been downloaded over 32 million times.
Highlights:
Programming language: C#.
Pricing: open source.
As always, this list is far from complete. If you are new to API testing, try at least several of these tools and don’t stop to experiment until you find the one that suits you best. And if you stopped by while looking for API testing services, QA Madness can help with that 🙂 Feel free to contact us and discuss the details.
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