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REST API provides a way to flexibly access web services without requiring a lot of processing power. The following are features that highlight the importance of REST API.
- Distinguishing between client and server: REST's architecture completely separates the user interface from client and server, improving the portability of the interface to other platforms. At the same time, it adds the project's scalability capabilities, allowing data modifications, which ensures independent development of clients and servers.
- Scalability: The separation of clients and servers helps each development team to scale the product, which can be easily operated in the database and tracked across components.
- cacheable: The design support resources of the REST API are cached on the server side or client side, which greatly ensures high performance.
- is easy to understand: REST uses simple and easy to understand HTTP verbs (GET, POST, PUT or DELETE, etc.) methods to conduct conversations, supports displaying information on the client and storing or operating data on the server side, which helps improve the work efficiency of developers.
REST API GUI Recommended
Although RESTful web service is scalable and easy to maintain, manual API testing is complicated, so we need to choose some useful clients to help us test the REST API. Here, the coder listed 11 of the most popular client tools for REST API testing.
HTTPie
HTTPie is an HTTP tool that writes command lines in Python, developed for testing and debugging REST APIs. It ensures human interaction with HTTP servers, RESTful APIs, and web servers. HTTPie uses simple and easy-to-understand syntax to get started easily.
Its interactive user interface has many intuitive features such as syntax display highlighting, wget class download, and plug-ins that make REST API testing seamless. In addition, the built-in JSON support enables easy sending of JSON requests. Some of the main features of
HTTPie are:
- convenient to use
- syntax is simple and easy to understand
- built-in JSON supports
- syntax display highlight
- rich colors
code
use code maker to query epidemic data and quickly build global epidemic statistics application (reference: https://majiang.co/templates/covid-19-chart)
code maker is mainly aimed at domestic users, compared with foreign developed REST API GUI, Majiang's UI interface design is more suitable for domestic scenarios, and it also integrates a variety of domestic data sources, including Feishu , Enterprise WeChat , Dingding , Alibaba Cloud OSS, etc. Not only that, Codecs also provides common tenant management, fine-grained permission control, audit logs and other functions in domestic business scenarios, allowing you to quickly build applications while also protecting your enterprise information security .
Postman
Postman A widely circulated API GUI tool. As of April 2022, its API platform has used more than 20 million users. Postman provides an extensible API test environment , supporting management, debugging, running requests, creating automated tests, recording and monitoring APIs. Postman allows you to create HTTP requests and send them to backend services, and Postman's built-in tools allow developers to easily test APIs. In addition, Postman also offers a desktop application. Some of the main features of
Postman are:
- Automated seamless testing
- Easy to share and manage API interface
- Support Swagger and RAML (RESTful API modeling language) format
- Strong visual compatibility
- Support multiple protocols
- Support multiple protocols
Curl
Curl is a basic open source command line tool for transferring data between servers, while supporting the creation of HTTP requests and sending them to back-end services, and also supporting the use of cURL commands to send HTTP requests such as POST, PUT, and DELETE.
Use Curl REST Client to test the basic functions of the REST API, you can use Curl at a command prompt or install the Cygwin package. Some of the main features of
Curl are:
- allows sending HTTP-dependent requests
- uses batch requests to build script
- supports different protocols, such as HTTP, FTP, IMAP, SMTP and POP3
uses curl to request Baidu official website
Swagger
Swagger is an open source tool serving a series of processes such as API design, development, and testing. Swagger provides a standard format for creating REST APIs. In addition, the backend programmer can automatically generate complex documents based on the Open API Specification protocol through the Swagger official library. Some of the main features of
Swagger are:
- supports API design, development, document preparation and testing
- provides a variety of open source tools for OpenAPI specification
- supports API simulation and virtualization
- supports management and monitoring
Katalan Studio 10
Katalon Studio is a free API testing platform, an automation tool that supports the creation and sending of HTTP Request to backend service. Katalan Studio includes all frameworks, ALM integrations, and plug-ins in one package.
Some of its main features are:
- friendly UI interface, visual operations
- free API testing platform
- supports all types of REST and SOAP requests
SoapUI
SoapUI is an open source tool specially developed for API testing, which can easily test REST and SOAP APIs. Some of the main features of
SoapUI are:
- provides drag and drop function
- supports reusable load testing and secure scanning scripts
- supports different types of REST, SOAP, JMS and IoT requests
- can seamlessly integrate with 13 API management platforms
REST-assured
REST-assured is a product for testing in Java The open source REST client for the API is the first choice for Java developers to automatically test REST services.
Some of its main features are:
- write tests in clear descriptive language
- supports different types of XML and JSON requests
- allows seamless integration with Serenity automation framework
Karate DSL
Karate DSL is an open source API testing framework based on the Cucumber library, which allows testers to write in a domain-specific language to test web services.
Karate Some of the main features of DSL are:
- does not require previous programming experience
- supports multi-threaded parallel
- can generate tests and reports like standard Java projects
Airborne
Airborne As an open source API automation tool for testing REST APIs, it is an RSpec driver framework based on Ruby. It has no UI interface and only writes code through text files.
Some of its main features are:
- supports API written in Rails
- allows working with Rack applications
- Just understand the basics of Ruby and RSpec
Apigee
Apigee is a cross-cloud API testing platform for measuring and testing API performance. Ability to help old-fashioned backend servers or completely serverless stacks, organizations create a unified digital experience and provide management services and security for all APIs.Some of the main features of
Apigee are:
- customizable developer portal
- supports Node.js
- open API specifications, allowing creation of API proxy
- to support design, monitoring, analysis and extension API
written at the end
Nowadays, most web applications talk to the server through the REST API, but novices will encounter difficulties when using and testing REST API. Therefore, in this article, the coder introduced to you what REST API is, demonstrated the needs and importance of REST API, and thus introduced the above 11 REST GUI tools for API testing. Developers can choose the right tools according to their needs.
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