What is a Postman tool?

As web applications become more complex, APIs (application programming interfaces) play a vital role in connecting the front and back ends. Postman has emerged as one of the most popular tools for testing and developing with APIs.

What Exactly is Postman?

Postman is an API testing tool that allows developers to quickly test REST, SOAP, and GraphQL APIs. With Postman, you can easily:

It provides a clean intuitive user interface for efficiently testing APIs without having to write code.

Key Postman Features

Building and Sending Requests

Postman makes it trivial to configure and send well-formed API requests quickly.

For example, you can set headers, body content type (JSON, XML, etc), URL parameters, authorization, etc with just a few clicks.

GET /users/1234 
Authorization: Bearer xxxxxxxx

Saving Responses

All responses are saved by default for later reference. You can review past responses, share results with teammates, or save example payloads to disk.

Testing and Validation

Postman lets you write JavaScript tests to validate API responses. This allows you to check status codes, response times, header values, body content, and ensure responses are correctly formatted.

Tests can be run individually or as a group.

pm.test("Response time is less than 500ms", function () {
    pm.expect(pm.response.responseTime).to.be.below(500);
});

API Documentation

Postman can auto-generate API documentation from your requests. This provides a simple way to create nice looking documentation for your team.

Wrap Up

Postman takes the hassle out of working with APIs. With its user-friendly graphical interface and many built-in features, Postman makes API testing fast and efficient for developers.

If you are building, testing or documenting APIs, give Postman a try today!