I've been encountering difficulties with API clients lately. It seems like most of them, like Postman and Insomnia, are heavily focused on cloud synchronization and requiring accounts. Sometimes, I just want a reliable tool that operates completely offline without sending my data anywhere. I've come across a few options so far:
- **Bruno**: This is open source, and it saves collections as plaintext files, which makes it great for version control with Git.
- **Hurl**: This one is fully scriptable and stores everything in text format, which is really handy.
- **Insomnium**: This is a fork of Insomnia from before it went closed-source.
- **Apidog**: It has an offline debugging mode, so it's modern without being lock-in to cloud.
Do you think offline-first API clients are underrated? Or does cloud sync make it too convenient to let go of that functionality?
3 Answers
Bruno is what my coworkers and I use. It’s simple and works fine for us. I appreciate that it doesn’t have the corporate vibe that Postman does lately.
I hadn’t heard of Bruno before this, but I’m really sick of Postman’s changes. It’s funny that the logo for Bruno is a dog, I have a dog named Bruno too!
Honestly, Postman has become such a bloated tool that it’s hard to justify its use. There are definitely better, lighter options out there.
If you're looking for alternatives, have you tried Hoppscotch? It's user-friendly and you can even import your Postman collections, which makes it a solid alternative.
Yeah, Hoppscotch is easy to use! I prefer it for quick tasks.
Bruno definitely has a good, straightforward approach. Makes it easy to get started!