6 Best REST API Tools for Testing, Design, and Development
Tags: Postman, Web Development, Testing, Tools, Rest

6 Best REST API Tools for Testing, Design, and Development

My favorite tools to build and test REST APIs and web services include Postman for automation testing, curl a Linux command, Swagger, and a few more. javinpaul Follow Sep 4 · 8 min read

Hello folks, If you are a Java or web developer working on REST APIs and RESTful web services and looking for some testing tools to test your APIs and web services, or open-source tools to document your REST APIs then you have come to the right place.

Earlier, I have shared the best books and courses for RESTful web services and in this article, I am going to share five awesome but easily accessible and free tools to test your REST APIs.

These REST API testing and development tools will help you to test your APIs as you build, starting from unit testing to integration testing and then fully automating your resting to create a regression pack.

You can also use these tools to interact with your REST API during the development phase for quick tests.



Some of you might already be familiar with these tools, commands, and library in that case just chip in and share your experience so that we can all learn from each other.

If you ask me, I generally used the curl command for simple testing like to see what data a particular REST endpoint returns but for more sophisticated testing I generally use tools like Postman, RESTAssured, or SOAPUI.



Anyway, without any further ado, here are some tools you can use to test your REST APIs or RESTful web services, as we Java developer calls them. I will also add more tools and their examples as and when I find them, but for now I have shared the tools and resources for further learning them.

6 Best Tools for REST API Designers, Developers, and Testers

Without wasting any more of your time, here is my list of best tools for REST API testing for Java developers. You can use these tools to interact with your RESTful web services like sent HTTP GET and POST requests, monitor response code, examine headers and cookies and inspect data.

1. Postman [Best API testing tool]

If you are not a big fan of command-line tools and rather like a GUI client to test your REST API then PostMan is the best tool for you. It comes as a Chrome extension and you can install it on your chrome browser and from thereon.



It is probably the most popular tool to test your REST API. If you look at their website, you will find that Postman is used by 5 million developers and more than 100,000 companies to access 130 million APIs every month.



It’s also feature-rich and supports every stage of the REST API lifecycle. Through design, testing, and full production, Postman is there for faster, easier API development — without the chaos.



It doesn’t matter whether you are working in Windows, Mac OS, or Linux, you can download the Postman app to test your REST APIs anywhere.

If you want to learn more about Postman tools for REST API Testing, I highly recommend you join Postman: The Complete Guide — REST API Testing course by Valentine Despa on Udemy. It’s a great resource to effectively use the Postman tool.