In today’s class we are going to learn about what is API, the types of API’s, Why is API an Essential Part of Software Development, which are the leading API Testing with Postman Alternatives tools in the market.
What is API?
API (Application Programming Interface) is a computing interface that enables communication and data exchange between two software systems.
There are three types of API:
- Private APIs: Available for Internal applications only. The private strategy allows a company to control the API usage fully.
- Public APIs: These public APIs are available for any third-party developers to access and integrate into their software. Public API’s providers vary from big technology firms such as FLAG Companies to individual developers.
- Partner APIs: These APIs are shared with business partners who have signed an agreement with the publisher. Partner APIs are used most for software integration between two parties.
Why is API an Essential Part of Software Development?
Agile development is becoming the standard in many product teams. The way we develop software and automate tests has changed adequately.
Moreover, Integration testing focuses on verifying that the interactions of many small components can integrate correctly. So, service testing leans to be quicker and more reliable than GUI tests.
Furthermore, coupled with Agile and DevOps’ rising popularity, it results in shift-left, with the QA process becoming earlier than the waterfall model. When testing starts earlier, teams are focused on the quality and get the mindset “coding right the first time.” These reasons lead to the development of API testing.
As API testing is demanding in software development, testers and QA teams must choose a qualified API testing tool to best utilize its benefits.
Postman for API Testing:
Postman was first developed as a side project for simplifying API workflow and testing projects. It is built for API development, testing, and managing APIs.
Postman is widely favored by developers who need to run quick API tests while building their software. These tests usually take place in the first stages of the software development life cycle and do not require extensive testing capabilities.
Highlight features:
- Ease of use: A new user to Postman just needs to sign up, download, and log in to their account to get started.
- Simplified APIs: Postman users can begin their API journey quickly
- Integration and collaboration powered: Postman Workspace is dedicated to the real-time collaboration between teams with built-in version control.
API Testing: Manual Testing vs. Automation Testing:
Postman – The ideal tool for manual API testing
Postman has a simple GUI for sending HTTP requests and viewing responses. It is built upon an extensive set of power tools, which are incredibly easy to use. Postman helps you perform a variety of functions ranging from:
- Sharing common values across offers with environment variables
- Scripting tests with the built-in node.js based runtime
- Organizing requests into collection and folders.
The urge for Postman alternatives in automation testing:
Regardless of these advantages, Postman still has drawbacks when it comes to getting API tests done automatically. As the tool is well designed for manual testing – a fast and convenient way to test API’s functionality – its shortage of extensive features causes bottlenecks in the automation process.
- Some of the key aspects that Postman hardly satisfies the requirements for advanced API testing include: Postman is not built for automated test validation, making it hard to ensure stability in performance.
- It lacks a reporting mechanism — a much-needed feature for Agile teams nowadays.
- Postman’s reusability is apparently low — Script maintenance in Postman is challenging, especially for non-technical testers. This obstacle results in a significant increase in cost and human effort.
- It lacks support for CI/CD integrations and shift-left or Agile processes to meet QA teams’ demand when choosing a testing tool.
- It is not built to support team collaboration. Teams with technical and non-technical members, it is a challenge for those with limited programming skills to continue developing the test scripts.
Postman alternatives for Automation API Testing:
Katalon Studio
Katalon Studio is a complete automation platform for continuous testing. The tool supports several types of application under test, including API testing. With extended features, the application makes API testing much faster and more convenient for reporting and team collaboration. In case you are already familiar with Postman and need a way to sync all your API data into Katalon Studio, check out this Postman migration guide.
Highlight features:
- Seamless integration with other ALM tools for CI/DevOps practices
- Allows testers and developers to collaborate and share test cases easily
- Supports AssertJ to create fluent assertions using the BDD style
- Hundreds of built-in keywords available for creating test cases
- Handles API, Web, desktop and mobile tests across platforms
Website: https://www.katalon.com/
SOAP UI
It is an open-source and headless functional testing tool specifically designed for API testing. Also, SOAPUI has a paid version, both free and paid versions were powered by Smartbear. With this tool, you can do Functional Testing, Performance Testing, Interoperability Testing, Regression Testing, etc.
Highlight features:
- Robust data-driven testing with data from files and databases
- Generates tests easily
- Mocks services with RESTful mocking
- Asynchronous testing
Website: https://www.soapui.org/
Apigee
Apigee is a cross-cloud API testing tool that allows users to measure and test API performance, supports, and builds API using other editors like Swagger. Apigee is one of the leaders in the Gartner Magic Quadrant 2019 for Full Lifecycle API Management for the fourth consecutive time.
Highlight features
- It is multi-step and powered by JavaScript
- Allows the design monitor, deploy, and scale APIs
- Easily create API proxies from the Open API Specification and deploy them in the cloud.
- Cloud, on-premise, or hybrid deployment model on a single code base
Website: https://cloud.google.com/apigee/
Further reading: Top 50 Software testing tools
Conclusion:
API testing will essentially endure in the software testing market. Tools like Postman, Katalon, SOAP UI, and Apigee have great potential for further development. It is crucial for teams and firms to pick the right tool to scale up with their projects.
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