Item: Postman
Rating: 10
Author: Haroon Akmal

Overall Satisfaction with Postman

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We're using Postman for testing of our API systems. We've got many different API systems, public and private, and all those systems are tested by my team using Postman. We've created different collections for each, as Smoke tests, that we run at each test-deploy and then we also have Functional tests collection. We're continuously maintaining these tests (collection). The problem I've is that it lacks the connectivity with databases, either relation or trendy-document DB like MongoDB/ CosmosDB. I have to rely on exporting data from these DBs and to feed it in Postman. This is the only manual step a user has to perform, otherwise our tests are based fully on automation.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Loading APIs (Just put the URL and hit send, if it doesn't require security token)
N-level of organizing collections into folders/ sub-folders
Sharing the collection across team
Create documentation, adding examples for each scenario
Run Feature
Assertion scripts snippets are really helpful in tests
Environments can be organized as per users' need.

Cons

Database connectivity - To get data directly from DBs (traditional plus new like MongoDB or CosmosDB)
Data Generator - Random data generator like email, names, zip/postal codes, addresses, mobile number. Although there's a public API but it has limits.

Most Important Features

Sharing
Documentation
Monitors

Return on Investment

A lot of manual human effort is replaced by quicker automation
Monitor keeps eye on critical endpoints

Alternatives Considered

SoapUI Open Source and supported by SmartBear

Sharing across teams is very robust in Postman than SoapUI.
Adding APIs/ managing collections is very user friendly in Postman.

Key Insights

Do you think Postman delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Postman's feature set?

Yes

Did Postman live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Postman go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Postman again?

Yes

Other Software Used

SoapUI Open Source, supported by SmartBear, Swagger Open Source, supported by SmartBear, ReadyAPI (formerly SoapUI Pro, LoadUI Pro, & ServiceV Pro)

Likelihood to Recommend

Postman is well suited where APIs are involved. I've been testing many backend systems and are well organized into many tests like Smoke for each system and then functional tests as well. Along with that I've few created monitors for production-critical endpoints/API-methods.

Postman is less appropriate where you need to automate your tests that involves verification from databases or depends on data from databases. Also, it lacks functionality to generate random data. I've been using work around using scripts to achieve randomness in my tests.

Postman Feature Ratings

Comments

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Except Data Generator and Database connectivity, happy with Postman