Postman and Kong Insomnia both facilitate API development, but Postman offers a broader feature set for the entire API lifecycle with a large community, ideal for teams needing versatile testing and collaboration tools. Kong Insomnia excels in API design collaboration and offers specific integrations for Kong Gateway and Kubernetes, suiting teams prioritizing spec-first development or those invested in the Kong ecosystem, often at a slightly lower starting price point for paid features.
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Postman is a popular platform used by developers to work with APIs (connections between software). It helps teams build, test, and manage these APIs throughout their entire lifespan. Postman prioritizes collaboration, quality, security, and efficiency for software development teams of all sizes.
Kong Insomnia is a tool that helps teams build and use application programming interfaces (APIs). It offers a collaborative environment to design, test, and manage APIs. With features like automatic code generation and integration with other tools, Insomnia aims to streamline the API development process and improve the reliability of your software. It is a good choice for teams who want to improve collaboration and automate their API workflow.
Summary
Main difference
Postman offers a more comprehensive suite of tools covering the entire API lifecycle with a large community network, making it versatile for various testing and development needs. Kong Insomnia focuses strongly on API design collaboration and offers tighter integration with specific ecosystems like Kong Gateway and Kubernetes.
Relative strengths of Postman (compared to Kong Insomnia)
Postman provides a broader range of features covering API testing, debugging (with Postbot), and collaboration, supporting teams through more stages of the API lifecycle.
Postman benefits from a significantly larger user base and the Public API Network, offering access to millions of community-built APIs and templates, which can accelerate development and onboarding.
Postman generally offers more integrations with third-party tools and services, enhancing its flexibility within diverse development environments, as highlighted by user reviews mentioning seamless connectivity.
Postman is often cited for its ease of use, particularly for executing simple API requests and organizing workflows through collections, making it accessible for teams starting with API development.
The platform includes Postbot, an AI assistant specifically designed to help with debugging and writing tests, potentially speeding up quality assurance processes.
Postman supports a wider variety of protocols beyond just REST, providing flexibility for teams working with diverse API types.
User reviews frequently praise Postman's ability to easily format responses (e.g., JSON) and manage different environments and variables, simplifying testing workflows.
Postman's structured approach to collections and workspaces facilitates sharing and collaboration within teams, although some complexities exist on the free plan.
Despite some performance complaints, Postman's interface for basic API execution and interaction is often found to be intuitive and quick for initial calls.
Postman has demonstrated significant company growth (LinkedIn employee growth), suggesting ongoing investment and development in the platform.
It has a very high number of positive reviews on G2, indicating widespread user satisfaction despite noted drawbacks.
Postman caters effectively to small and medium businesses, aligning well with the target audience's size.
The platform helps reduce work duplication through shared workspaces and collections.
Postman aims to speed up the 'time to first API call' with its tools and resources.
It enables teams to discover, share, and run tests collaboratively within the platform.
Users appreciate the ability to easily organize numerous APIs and endpoints.
The automatic prettifying of JSON input is a liked feature for usability.
Postman offers monthly and annual billing, with savings on annual plans.
Add-ons like Postbot and Collection Runner provide extended functionality, albeit at extra cost.
The platform is suitable for a wide range of team sizes, from small businesses to large enterprises.
It's particularly strong in the Software/IT/Telecommunications sector.
Relative weaknesses of Postman (compared to Kong Insomnia)
Users report performance issues and slowness, especially when working with large API collections or complex use cases, impacting reliability.
Postman's pricing receives negative sentiment, and costs can increase significantly with paid tiers and add-ons like Postbot, potentially challenging the value proposition for budget-conscious teams.
While offering collaboration features, setting up effective team collaboration can be less straightforward, particularly for users on the free plan.
Free tier users have limitations on storage and potentially the number of Collection Runs, which might hinder teams relying heavily on automated testing.
Postman lacks the specific, deep integrations for generating configurations for Kong Gateway and Kubernetes that Kong Insomnia provides.
Some users find that advanced functionalities require more effort to set up and understand.
The platform's non-functional ratings for reliability, performance, and scalability are noted as 'highly negative', contrasting with its ease of use/implementation.
Website traffic growth is minimal compared to strong employee growth, potentially indicating market saturation or slower user adoption.
While versatile, it might be overly complex for teams solely focused on API design specification compared to Insomnia's targeted approach.
The need for paid add-ons for features like advanced Collection Runner usage can increase the total cost of ownership.
Who should use Postman VS. Kong Insomnia
We find Postman is a go-to for software developers and teams needing to streamline API work. It makes building, testing, and managing APIs much smoother, especially with features users love like response formatting and environment placeholders. It's designed for collaboration, helping teams avoid duplicate work and get APIs running faster across the entire lifecycle
Kong Insomnia is a tool we often see used by software development teams who need a solid way to handle their APIs from start to finish. If you're designing, testing, or managing APIs, especially in complex microservice setups, it's worth a look. It really shines when teams need to collaborate closely and automate parts of their API development workflow. We find it helps streamline things quite a bit, especially for larger development operations
In our experience, Postman scales well, making it a solid choice for software teams in small businesses right up to large enterprises.
We've seen Postman deliver the most value for companies operating within the Software, IT, and Telecommunications sectors.
In our experience, Kong Insomnia works particularly well for medium-sized companies and is an excellent choice for large enterprises.
We notice Kong Insomnia is a popular choice within the Software, IT, and Telecommunications sectors where robust API management is key.
Postman and Kong Insomnia features
Supported
Partially supported
Not supported
Type in the name of the feature or in your own words tell us what you need
Execute, test, and interact with APIs
10
sources
Supported
Postman allows API execution, testing, and interactions, including opening and extending collections for efficient workflows.
Supported
Kong Insomnia allows API execution, testing, and interaction, enabling efficient workflow building.
Reduce duplication of work
10
sources
Supported
Postman reduces work duplication via collaborative workspaces and API lifecycle management tools.
Supported
Kong Insomnia reduces duplication through collaboration, automation, and a unified platform.
Faster time to first API call
10
sources
Supported
Postman streamlines API workflows, enabling faster setup and earlier testing with mocks and automation.
Supported
Kong Insomnia enables faster API development through unified workflows and automation.
API management
10
sources
Supported
Postman supports API management, including the ability to manage, design, and secure APIs.
Partially supported
Kong Insomnia supports API design, testing, and security, but not direct management.
API scanning
10
sources
Partially supported
Postman supports API scanning for vulnerabilities via third-party integrations.
Not supported
Kong Insomnia does not natively support API vulnerability scanning.
Automated testing
10
sources
Supported
Postman supports automated testing by running tests automatically as part of the CI/CD pipeline.
Supported
Kong Insomnia supports automated API testing and CI/CD integration via its CLI.
Browse all features
Qualities
Value and Pricing Transparency
-0.64
Rather negative sentiment
No data
Ease of Use
+0.88
Strongly positive sentiment
No data
Reliability and Performance
+0.16
Neutral sentiment
No data
Ease of Implementation
+0.54
Rather positive sentiment
No data
Scalability
+0.33
Rather positive sentiment
No data
Postman and Kong Insomnia Pricing
Postman offers monthly and annual billing options for its paid plans. An annual subscription provides savings of up to 25%. Users can enhance their API development experience with add-ons like Postbot (AI-powered assistant), Collection Runner (for testing and automation), and more. These add-ons offer various features and are available at different price points.
Plans
0Free
For individuals or a small team of 3 or less to start testing APIs. It includes up to 3 collaborators, access to API Client, cloud-based integrations, 3 Packages, 1-day collection recovery, 25 collection runs, access to Flows, and 50 free activities in Postbot.
$14/user/monthBasic
Basic API collaboration for a single team. It includes unlimited collaborators, 30-day collection recovery, 10,000 Mock Server requests, 10,000 Monitor requests, and additional pay-as-you-go capabilities.
$29/user/monthProfessional
API collaboration for larger teams, cross-org, and external partners. It includes private workspaces, single & multi-partner workspaces, basic role-based access control, 25 Packages, and 90 days collection recovery.
$49/user/monthEnterprise
Org-wide API development with advanced support, security, and control. It includes a private API network, SSO, SCIM, & SAML, reporting & analytics, audit logs, user groups, advanced role-based access control, 100 Packages, 100,000 Mock Server requests, 10,000 Monitor requests, and customer success.
Kong Insomnia offers a tiered subscription model with three plans: Hobby, Pro, and Enterprise. The Hobby plan is free and suitable for individual developers. The Pro plan is $12 per user/month and offers additional features like unlimited collaborators and native Git support. The Enterprise plan is $45 per user/month, billed annually, and includes enterprise-grade features like SSO, advanced RBAC, and custom payment options.
Plans
FreeHobby
All API designing, debugging, mocking and collaboration. Unlimited collaborators for accounts with 1 project. Unlimited collection runs.
$12 per user/monthPro
All features in Hobby, plus: Unlimited collaborators, Unlimited organizations, Native Git support, RBAC and permissions.
$45 per user/monthEnterprise
All features in Pro, plus: Enterprise SSO (SAML, OIDC) & SCIM, Storage control to mandate Cloud, Local or Git, Advanced RBAC for teams, Domain Capture & Invite Control, Self-hosted API mocking, Enterprise support, Kong Professional Services, Custom payment options, Unlimited mock requests, Vault Integrations.
Flexible, organizado, facil de usar y de implementar, asi como de compartir para trabajar en equipo e integrar herramientas o servicios externos
Response formatting (can format the API response in JSON etc.)
Numerous integrations and seamless app connectivity
Easily organize many APIs and their endpoints, the ability to use placeholders and set environments, automatic prettifying JSON (input)
No data
Users dislike
Free Storage is less in postman while running the APIs
Sometimes it gets tedious to setup for advanced use cases and large API collections which causes performance issues
The functionalities needs to be elaborated
Collaboration across a small team is not very straight forward if we are on a free plan
Postman servers looks pritty slow while accessing, they should improve a loading speed and letency
No data
Postman and Kong Insomnia Ratings
G2
4.6/5
(1193)
Glassdoor
3.3/5
(207)
G2
4.6/5
(13)
Glassdoor
3.9/5
(130)
Company health
Employee growth
35% increase in the last year
32% increase in the last year
Web traffic
1% increase in the last quarter
9% decrease in the last quarter
Financing
February 2021 - $433M
August 2024 - $344M
How do Postman's "workspaces" compare to Insomnia's collaboration features?
Postman uses Workspaces as its core collaboration feature, designed to connect users and all elements of the API lifecycle, enabling teams to discover, share collections, and run tests together. Insomnia offers a collaborative environment specifically focused on API design, development, and management, with its paid plans emphasizing features like native Git support and role-based access controls (RBAC) for more structured team collaboration. While both aim to facilitate teamwork, Postman's free tier collaboration capabilities have been noted as potentially less straightforward, whereas Insomnia highlights specific team-oriented features like permissions and version control integration in its paid offerings.
Which product better integrates with existing API documentation workflows?
Based on the provided information, Kong Insomnia appears to better integrate with existing API documentation workflows, particularly those centered around API specifications. It explicitly features API Specification Management and promotes a spec-first design approach, suggesting a tighter coupling with workflows where documentation is generated or managed directly from specifications like OpenAPI. While Postman supports the full API lifecycle and its Collections can be used for documentation, Kong Insomnia's focus on managing the specifications themselves aligns more directly with common documentation generation processes.
What are the advantages of Postman?
Postman offers several advantages for teams working with APIs. It excels in facilitating collaboration through shared workspaces and collections, helping to reduce duplicated effort. Users find it easy to use and implement, allowing for quick execution, testing, and interaction with APIs, including helpful features like response formatting and automatic JSON prettifying. Postman supports the full API lifecycle, offers robust testing and debugging capabilities, including an AI assistant (Postbot), and supports a wide variety of protocols. Furthermore, its Public API Network enhances discoverability and provides access to numerous community resources, contributing to faster developer onboarding and time to first API call.
What are the disadvantages of Postman?
Based on user feedback and non-functional ratings, Postman's disadvantages include performance problems, particularly with large API collections and server latency, leading to poor ratings for reliability and scalability. Setting up advanced use cases can be complex, and the free tier has limitations on storage and team collaboration features. Additionally, users have expressed negative sentiment regarding pricing, value transparency, and a need for better elaboration on some functionalities.
Is Postman cheaper than Kong Insomnia?
Based on the provided pricing information, Kong Insomnia is generally cheaper than Postman for comparable paid tiers. Both offer a free plan. However, Kong Insomnia's first paid tier (Pro) is $12 per user/month, which is less expensive than Postman's Basic tier at $14 per user/month. Similarly, Kong Insomnia's Enterprise tier at $45 per user/month is cheaper than Postman's Enterprise tier at $49 per user/month. Postman does offer an additional mid-tier (Professional) at $29 per user/month, which doesn't have a direct equivalent listed for Kong Insomnia.
Michal has worked at startups for many years and writes about topics relating to software selection and IT
management. As a former consultant for Bain, a business advisory company, he also knows how to understand needs
of any business and find solutions to its problems.
TT
Tymon Terlikiewicz
CTO at Gralio
Tymon is a seasoned CTO who loves finding the perfect tools for any task. He recently headed up the tech
department at Batmaid, a well-known Swiss company, where he managed about 60 software purchases, including CX,
HR, Payroll, Marketing automation and various developer tools.
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