Postman vs. SpecFlow

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Postman
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Postman, headquartered in San Francisco, offers their flagship API development and management free to small teams and independent developers. Higher tiers (Postman Pro and Postman Enterprise) support API management, as well as team collaboration, extended support and other advanced features.
$0
SpecFlow
Score 9.5 out of 10
N/A
SpecFlow is an open source BDD for .NET. that aims to bridge the communication gap between domain experts and developers by binding readable behavior specifications to the underlying implementation.N/A
Pricing
PostmanSpecFlow
Editions & Modules
Postman Free Plan
$0.00 US Dollars
Postman Basic Plan
$12 US Dollars
per month per user
Postman Professional Plan
$29 US Dollars
per month per user
Postman Enterprise Plan
$99 US Dollars
per month per user
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
PostmanSpecFlow
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details1. Postman Free plan: Start designing, developing, and testing APIs at no cost for teams of up to three people. 2. Postman Basic plan: Collaborate with your team to design, develop, and test APIs faster; $12/month per user, billed annually 3. Postman Professional plan: Centrally manage the entire API workflow; $29/month per user, billed annually 4. Postman Enterprise plan: Securely manage, organize, and accelerate API-first development at scale; $99/month per user, billed annually
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
PostmanSpecFlow
Top Pros

No answers on this topic

Top Cons

No answers on this topic

Features
PostmanSpecFlow
API Management
Comparison of API Management features of Product A and Product B
Postman
8.4
35 Ratings
3% above category average
SpecFlow
-
Ratings
API access control9.532 Ratings00 Ratings
Rate limits and usage policies7.118 Ratings00 Ratings
API usage data8.117 Ratings00 Ratings
API user onboarding8.321 Ratings00 Ratings
API versioning8.724 Ratings00 Ratings
Usage billing and payments7.912 Ratings00 Ratings
API monitoring and logging8.832 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
PostmanSpecFlow
Small Businesses
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.1 out of 10
BrowserStack
BrowserStack
Score 8.3 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.1 out of 10
ReadyAPI
ReadyAPI
Score 8.0 out of 10
Enterprises
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.1 out of 10
ignio AIOps
ignio AIOps
Score 8.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
PostmanSpecFlow
Likelihood to Recommend
9.7
(39 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.5
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.1
(11 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
PostmanSpecFlow
Likelihood to Recommend
Postman
Postman is very good for easy entry into testing. Thanks to snippets it is easy to use, but also provides a lot [of] possibilities for testing thanks to the in-line editor. Easy to use on multiple environments (versioning) thanks to sets of environment variables. The Collections view can get very full with time and it is not possible to reuse or link requests so that they have always been copied and maintained manually for each copy if changes have to be applied.
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Open Source
It is best suited for implementing the automated test cases in a human readable form so it's easy for non-technical members of the team and stakeholders to understand the test cases, features and the functionalities of the application. Automation of Integration tests and End to End tests are good use case. It is less appropriate or situations where the focus is only on the writing and maintenance of unit tests.
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Pros
Postman
  • It has opened a door for me to explore more out of it, as it is associated with so many APIs that I never felt any difficulty in finding the right API template, which are well organized and easily available.
  • It is very secure to use and provides great services which are user-friendly.
  • Due to this software I have got rid of the excessive emails and the slack channels, Now I am using my own private API and even it give me an option to produce my personal Postman’s API Builder from its Private API Network and this features has shared my excessive workload.
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Open Source
  • Versatility to be used in combination with different kinds of automated testing like automated performance testing, API testing, UI testing etc. I use JavaScript, Selenium, C#, email testing libraries, database testing libraries in combination with BDD with SpecFlow. I am able to use all these with SpecFlow to make my automation framework to be able to automate any kind of automated testing.
  • It provides different widely used runner options like NUnit, XUnit etc. Before I started to work on establishing proper test automation in my workplace, the previous automation framework (non-BDD based) as well as unit tests used NUnit runner. The transition to using BDD was smooth because we could use the same runner and there were no compatibility issues.
  • The auto-complete feature is good. I use it with Visual Studio as well as Rider and I don't have to recall the entire Gherkin statements. I just type a few words and the entire Gherkin statement implemented in framework is auto-suggested by SpecFlow. It saves time and context switching.
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Cons
Postman
  • Wherever you need to automate tests that involve database verification or rely on data from databases, Postman is less suitable.
  • Postman's disc usage is extremely high, and it occasionally causes the computer to fade.
  • It doesn't have the ability to generate random data. To achieve randomness in my tests, I've been working around scripts.
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Open Source
  • SpecFlow does not accepts optional input variables in the methods defined during Gherkin statement implementation. Cucumber supports optional input variables in the methods defined during Gherkin statement implementation.
  • The tests identified while using SpecFlow with NUnit removes all white spaces in the scenario names. It makes the tests less readable. If the white spaces are not auto-removed, it would be much better for readability as well as their actual identification in the repository.
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Usability
Postman
I think from a non-technical perspective there are a few things that could be more clearly labeled to better understand what is being asked for or where to add certain parts of the request.
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Open Source
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Postman
There is a lot of in-depth documentation for Postman available online, including detailed guides with screenshots and videos. They provide example APIs for new users to explore while learning how to use the tool. Generally, bugs in the client are quickly addressed through frequent free updates. Community and professional support options are available - most of the time, the free/community level support is adequate
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Open Source
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Postman
Previous to using Postman, I would either use browser tools directly, or write an in-house tool to send requests. Postman eliminates that need while providing a much better experience and more features. At the base level, Postman is as simple as typing in the address as you would in a browser. Authentication can be provided simply as well.
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Open Source
SpecFlow is .Net based which supports C#. Behave is Python based. Cucumber is Java based. Ghost Inspector is no-code based but provides very limited testing features. We wanted to implement BDD so we rued out using Ghost Inspector. Most of the developers in my team are C# experts so it was decided for everyone's comfort to go for SpecFlow rather than Behave or Cucumber. It's import to have technical experts in the language of the automation framework because there are many situations where the solutions to the test automation needs are not straightforward and implementing those requires expertise in the related programming language.
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Return on Investment
Postman
  • Postman is free (although there's a paid tier that offers more features) so using it for testing APIs comes with little to no risk (besides learning curve).
  • The learning curve is a little steep for non-developer users, but developers should find it easy to pick up and use right out of the box, so to speak.
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Open Source
  • Everyone stays on the same page regarding the behavior of existing functionalities whether it be technical or non-technical individuals. So there is less need for multiple people to get involved which saves time and thus money.
  • Reusing the same code through the implemented Gherkin statement saves test automation time and thus reduces cost.
  • We combine SpecFlow with other opensource testing technologies to make our automation framework more versatile which further saves costs for us.
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ScreenShots

Postman Screenshots

Screenshot of API design - You can design your API specifications in Postman using OpenAPI, RAML, GraphQL, or SOAP formats. Postman’s schema editor makes it easy to work with specification files of any size, & it validates specifications with a built-in linting engine.Screenshot of API documentation - Postman automatically generates documentation & supports markdown-enabled and machine-readable documentation. Docs automatically include request details & sample code. Share the docs with your team, in a public workspace, or in a dedicated portal.Screenshot of API testing - Build and run functional, integration, & regression tests directly in Postman or as part of your CI/CD pipeline with Newman (Postman’s a command-line Collection Runner that enables you to run & test a collection from the command line).Screenshot of Public workspaces - Public workspaces allow you to share your APIs publicly with anyone. You can use public workspaces to gather feedback on your APIs, onboard developers quickly, or just showcase your work.Screenshot of Reporting - Postman generates reports that enable you to visualize data for team metrics and usage, & for API activities such as creation, collection execution, and test runs. Use reports to get insights on performance, troubleshooting, & SLA adherence.