10 Best API Testing Tools In 2021 (SOAP And REST

API Testing Tools)

Last Updated:May 30, 2021
List of the best free online API Testing Tools for Testing REST and SOAP APIs and
Web Services:
Application Programming Interfaces (API) testing is a type of software testing where
testing cannot be done at a front-end since there’s no GUI.
API testing has mainly performed the testing on the message layer and includes testing
REST API’s, SOAP Web services, which could be sent over HTTP, HTTPS, JMS, and MQ.
This now forms an integral component for any Automation Testing.
Due to the nature of API testing, it cannot be tested manually, and we need to opt for some
API test tools for testing APIs. In this article, I have covered a list of some top API testing
tools.

Conditional Statements in Unix with Examples (Tutorial #8 Part A)

Importance of API testing through a test pyramid:

The ROI for the API testing will be higher when compared to the other testing types which
are performed by the testers.

The below figure will give you the exact information on how much we need to focus on API
Testing. As API tests are in the second layer, these are important and it needs 20% of
testing efforts.

[image source]
While testing an API, the focus should be on using the software in such a way in which the
API will be called.

Hence, during testing, we need to check if the API will return the correct output under
different conditions. The output in which the API returns is generally the pass or fail status,
data, or a call to another API. For more accuracy and test coverage in API testing, data-
driven testing should be performed.
In order to test the API, the testers prefer automation testing when compared to manual
testing. This is because manual testing of API includes the writing of code to test it. API
testing is conducted at the message layer as there is an absence of GUI.
Before you start API testing, you need to set up the test environment with a set of
parameters. Configure the database and server as per the requirement. Then just like we
 perform smoke testing for an application, check the API by making an API call. This step will
ensure that nothing is broken and you can continue for thorough testing.

The various levels of testing that you can perform for testing an API are Functionality
Testing, Load Testing, Security Testing, Reliability Testing, API documentation Testing, and
Proficiency Testing.
Points you should consider for API testing are as follows:
 Target Audience or API consumer.
 The environment in which the API is going to be used.
 Testing aspects
 Test for normal conditions.
 Tests for abnormal conditions or negative tests.
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What You Will Learn: [hide]
 Top API Testing Tools (SOAP and REST API Test Tools)
o #1) ReadyAPI
o #2) ACCELQ
o #3) Katalon Studio
o #4) Postman
o #5) REST-Assured
o #6) Swagger.io
o #7) JMeter
o #8) Karate DSL
o #9) Airborne
o #10) Pyresttest
o #11) Apigee
o Other TOP Free and Paid API Test Tools to Consider
 Conclusion
o Recommended Reading

Top API Testing Tools (SOAP And REST API Test

Tools)
Here are the top 15 best API Testing Tools (Research Done for you).

Comparison Chart:
Tool Name Platform About tool Best For Price

ReadyAPI Windows, It is the platform for the Functional, security, and It starts at $6
Mac, Linux. functional, security, and load testing of API and
load testing of web services.
RESTful, SOAP,
GraphQL, and other
web services.
 Tool Name Platform About tool Best For Price

ACCELQ cloud-based Codeless API Test Automates API testing Free Trial Av
continuous Automation, Seamessly with automated test Pricing Starti
testing Integrated with UI design, codeless from: $150.0
testing automation logic, that includes
complete test UI, DB, Main
management, API automation
regression planning &
360 tracking.

Katalon Studio Windows, A comprehensive API, Automated testing Free license w

macOS, Web, Desktop Testing paid support
Linux and Mobile testing tool
for beginners and
experts.

Postman Windows, It is an API API testing Free Plan

Mac, development Postman Pro:
Linux, and environment. user/month
Chrome Postman Ente
browser- $18 per user/
plugin

REST-Assured -- Testing of REST Testing REST API. Free

services in Java
domain.

Swagger.io -- It is the tool for the The tool is best for API Free
entire lifecycle of API. designing. Team: $ 30 p
month for 2 u

Let’s Explore!!
#1) ReadyAPI
ReadyAPI Price: The pricing options available with ReadyAPI are SoapUI (Starts at $659
per year), LoadUI Pro (Starts at $5999 per year), ServiceV Pro(Starts at $1199 per year),
and ReadyAPI (Custom pricing. Get a quote). You can try the Ready API for 14 days for
free.
SmartBear provides the ReadyAPI platform for the functional, security, and load testing of
RESTful, SOAP, GraphQL, and other web services.

In one intuitive platform, you will get four powerful tools, API functional testing, API
performance testing, API security testing, and API & Web virtualization. This platform will
help you to ensure end-to-end quality for all web services.

It provides flexible automation options for integrating API testing into your CI/CD pipeline
during every build. You will be able to create comprehensive and data-driven functional API
tests.

Features:
 ReadyAPI can be integrated into any environment.
 It has a Smart Assertion feature that can create bulk assertions against hundreds of
endpoints quickly.
 It provides native support for Git, Docker, Jenkins, Azure, etc.
 It also supports Command-line for automated testing.
 It supports parallel execution of functional tests and job queuing.
 It provides features and functionalities for reusing the functional tests and generating
realistic load scenarios.
 ReadyAPI also provides features for removing dependencies during testing and
development.
Best For: This platform works best for DevOps and Agile Teams. It is the best tool for the
functional, security, and load testing of RESTful, SOAP, GraphQL, and other web services.
=> Visit ReadyAPI Website
#2) ACCELQ
ACCELQ – Codeless API Test Automation, seamlessly integrated with UI Testing.

ACCELQ is the only cloud-based continuous testing platform that seamlessly automates
API and web testing without writing a single line of code. IT teams of all sizes use ACCELQ
to accelerate their testing by automating critical aspects of lifecycle like test design,
planning, test generation, and execution.

ACCELQ customers typically save over 70% of the cost involved in the change &
maintenance efforts in testing, addressing one of the major pain points in the industry.
ACCELQ makes this possible with AI-powered core to bring self-healing automation
amongst other unique capabilities.

Design and User experience focus is at the heart of ACCELQ’s continuous innovation
approach with a relentless effort to accelerate testing and improve delivered Quality for its
customers.

Key Capabilities:
• Zero code API Test Automation on Cloud
• API and UI Test Automation in the same simplified flow
• API Test Case Management, Test Planning, Execution and tracking governance
• Dynamic Environment management
• Chain API Tests for true end-to-end validation
• Simple and Automated change impact analysis of API Test suite
• Regression suite planning with requirements tracking correlated with business processes
• Execution tracking with full visibility and defect tracking integrations
• Directly correlate Business process and corresponding API for complete coverage
• Seamless CI/CD and Jira/ALM integration with natural traceability
• No vendor lock, extendible framework open-source aligned

Best For: ACCELQ automates API testing with automated test design, codeless
automation logic, complete test management, API regression planning & 360 trackings.
=> Visit ACCELQ Website

#3) Katalon Studio

Katalon Studio is a robust and comprehensive automation tool for API, Web, Desktop
testing and Mobile testing.
Katalon Studio provides easy deployment by including all frameworks, ALM integrations,
and plugins in one package. The capability of combining UI and API/Web services for
multiple environments (Windows, Mac OS, and Linux) is also a unique advantage of
Katalon Studio among the top API tools.

Besides being a free solution, Katalon Studio also offers paid support services for small
teams, businesses, and enterprises.

Feature highlights:
 Supports both SOAP and REST requests various types of commands and
parameterization functionalities
 Supports the data-driven approach
 Supports CI/CD integration
 Supports AssertJ, one of the most potent assertion library, to create fluent assertion
with BDD style
 Suitable for both beginners and experts with the Manual and Scripting modes
 Can be used for both automated and exploratory testing
 Pre-built and customizable code templates
 Sample projects are provided for instant reference
 Auto-completion, auto-formatting and code inspection features for the code
 UI to create, execute, and maintain tests
=> Visit Katalon Studio Website

#4) Postman
Price: It has three pricing plans.
For individuals and small teams, there is a free plan. The second plan is Postman Pro,
which is for a team of 50 people. It will cost $8 per user per month. The third plan is
Postman Enterprise, it can be used by the team of any size. The cost for this plan is $18 per
user per month.
It is an API development environment. Postman API Development Environment is divided
into three parts, Collections, Workspaces, and Built-in Tools. Postman collections will allow
you to run requests, test and debug, create automated tests and mock, document, and
monitor API.

Postman workspace will provide you the collaboration features. It will allow you to share the
collections, set permissions, and manage participation in multiple workspaces for any team
size. Built-in tools will provide the features which will be required by the developers to work
with an API.
Features:
 Helps in automated testing.
 Assists in exploratory testing.
 It supports Swagger and RAML (RESTful API Modeling Language) formats.
 It supports knowledge sharing within the team.
Best For: The tool is best for API testing. It is rich in features, available for free, and has
really good reviews from its users.
Website: Postman

#5) REST-Assured
Price: Free.

REST-Assured makes testing of REST services in the Java domain easy. It is an open-
source tool. XML and JSON Requests/Responses are supported by REST-Assured.
Features:
 Seamless integration with the Serenity automation framework.
 It provides some baked-in functionalities.
 It supports the syntax of BDD Given/When/Then.
 To use the tool, it is not necessary to be an HTTP expert.
Best For Testing REST API.
Website: REST-Assured

#6) Swagger.io
Price: There are three plans for Swagger Hub, Free, Team, and Enterprise.
The price for the Team plan is $30 per month, for two users. For this plan, you can select
the number of users as 2, 5, 10, 15, and 20. The price will increase as the number of users
go up.

The third plan is an Enterprise plan. Enterprise plan is for 25 or more number of users.
Contact the company to know more about this company.

The Swagger is a tool that will help you through the entire lifecycle of an API. This tool will
allow doing a functional, performance, and security testing of API.
Swagger Inspector helps the developers and QAs to manually validate and explore the APIs
in the cloud. Load and performance testing is performed through LoadUI Pro. It will allow
you to reuse the functional tests of SoapUI. Swagger provides many open source tools.

Features:
Swagger provides the following features related to API:
 API design and development
 API documentation
 API Testing
 API Mocking and Virtualizations
 API Governance and monitoring
Best For: Tool is best for API designing.
Website: Swagger.io

#7) JMeter
Price: Free
It is open-source software for load and performance testing of applications. It supports
cross-platform. Jmeter works at a protocol layer.

Developers can use this tool as a unit-test tool for the testing of JDBC database
connections. It has plugins based architecture. Jmeter can generate test data. It supports
Command-line mode, which will be helpful for Java-compatible OS.

Features:
 It will allow you to use various programming languages.
 Load and performance testing of many different applications, servers, and protocols.
 It allows you to replay test results.
 It provides support for variable parameterization and assertions.
 It supports per-thread cookies.
 Configuration variables and a variety of reports are also supported by Jmeter.
Best For: Tool is best for load and performance testing of web applications.
Website: JMeter

#8) Karate DSL

Price: Free
It is an open-source framework for API testing. Karate framework is based on the cucumber
library. With this tool, a tester can test web services by writing tests in a domain-specific
language.
This tool is specially designed for automated API testing and is released by Intuit. To use
this tool there is no need to have a programming language. But the basic understanding of
HTTP, JSON, XML, XPath, and JsonPath will be an added advantage.

Features:
 Multi-threaded parallel execution is supported.
 It allows configuration switching.
 Reports generation.
 It supports reusing Payload-data for API testing.
Best For: It allows you to write tests in any language which can deal with HTTP, JSON, or
XML.
Download Link: Karate DSL
#9) Airborne
Price: Free

Airborne is an open-source API test automation framework. It is a Ruby-based RSpec

driven framework. This tool doesn’t have UI. It just provides the text file to write the code.

Features:
 It can work with APIs which are written in Rails.
 To use this tool, you must know Ruby and RSpec fundamentals.
 It can work with Rack applications.
Download Link: Airborne
#10) Pyresttest
Price: You can donate the amount by creating an account on GitHub.

It is a python based tool for testing of RESTful APIs. It is also a Micro-benchmarking tool.
For tests, it supports JSON config files. The tool is extensible in Python.

Features:
 Return exit codes for failed results.
 The building of test scenarios with generate/extract/validates mechanisms.
 Because of minimal dependencies, it has easy deployment on the server which is
helpful for smoke testing.
 No code required.
Best For RESTful APIs.
Website: Pyresttest

#11) Apigee
Price: Apigee provides four pricing plans, Evaluation (Free), Team ($500 per month),
Business ($2500 per month), Enterprise (Contact them). A free trial is also available for the
tool.
Apigee is a cross-cloud API management platform.

It provides security and governance policies for all APIs. Using the open API specification,
the tool allows you to easily create API proxies. With this tool, you can design, secure,
analyze, and scale APIs anywhere.

Features:
 It provides customizable developer portal.
 It supports Node.js.
 With the Enterprise plan, you will get advanced features like Apigee Sense advanced
security, distributed network for low latency, Monetization for new business models,
and traffic isolation.
 With a Business plan, it provides the features of IP whitelisting, Java & Python
callouts, distributed traffic management.
 For the Team plan, it provides API analytics, Web service callouts, and some
advanced policies like security, mediation, and protocol.
Best For API development.
Website: Apigee
Other TOP Free and Paid API Test Tools to Consider
12) Parasoft

Parasoft, an API Testing tool helps in automated test case generation which can be reused
and easily maintained and thus reduces a lot of regression effort. It supports end-to-end
testing and has a very user-friendly interface.

Also supports multiple platforms like Java, C, C++, or.NET. This is one of the top
recommended tools for API testing. It’s a paid tool and hence requires purchasing a license
and then requires an installation before the tool can be used.

Official Website: Parasoft

13) vREST

An Automated REST API Testing Tool which can work on the Web, Mobile or Desktop
applications. Its record and replay feature eases the test case creation. This Tool can be
used to test applications hosted locally, intranet or the Internet. Some of its good features
include supporting Jira and Jenkins integration and also allows imports from Swagger and
Postman.
Official Website: vREST
14) HttpMaster

HttpMaster will be the right choice if you are looking for a tool that helps in Website testing
as well as API testing. Other features include an ability to define global parameters,
provides the user with an ability to create checks for data response validation by using the
large set of validation types that it supports.

Official Website: HttpMaster

15) Runscope

An excellent tool for monitoring and testing API’s. This tool can be used for data validation
of API’s to ensure correct data are returned. This tool comes with a feature of tracking and
notifying in the case of any API transaction Failure, Hence if your application requires
payment validation, then this tool can prove to be a good choice.

Official Website: Runscope

16) Chakram
This tool supports end-to-end test on JSON REST endpoints. This tool also supports third-
party API testing. This tool can be a great help if you are looking for testing API’s that are
still under development. This is built on the Mocha testing framework.

Official Website: Chakram

17) Rapise

This tool comes with an extensive feature list that satisfies different types of testing needs,
one of them being the API testing. This supports testing SOAP Web services as well as
REST web services. In addition, it allows testing different types of DLL API’s ranging from
managed i.e. written using .NET framework to unmanaged written using native Intel x 86
codes.

Official Website: Rapise

18) API Inspector

API Inspector, a tool from Apiary allows for monitoring the API during the design phase by
capturing both request and response and lets user views them Apiary.io or Apiary editor
allows the user to write API blueprints.

Official Website: API Inspector

19) SOAP Sonar

SOAP Sonar is the Service and API Testing tool owned by one of the leading API tool
developing company Crosscheck Network. Tools allow testing by simulating HTTPS, REST,
SOAP, XML, and JSON. Other tools from the same brand are CloudPort Enterprise which is
mainly used for Service and API Emulation, and Forum Sentry, a tool for securing API’s.

Official Website: SOAP Sonar

20) API Science
API Science, an excellent API monitoring tool, comes with a feature to monitor Internal as
well as External API’s. This tool lets the user know if any API ever goes down, so necessary
action can be taken to bring it back up. Important features include excellent API diagnostics,
user-friendly dashboard, alert and notification system, powerful reporting and supports
JSON, REST, XML, and Oauth.

Official Website: API Science

21) API Fortress

From testing perspective what do you really check in an API tool, it should let you know if
API is up and running and second is on the response time.API fortress satisfies both the
requirement and proves to be a very good API testing tool. This allows a Full API testing
including regression test and like all other tools comes with features like SLA monitoring,
alerts, and notification, reporting.

Official Website: API Fortress

22) Quadrillian
It’s a web-based REST JSON API testing tool. It lets user follow a structure by creating a
project, then a test suite and then create and create/place the test cases. It lets creation &
sharing of the test suite using browser. The tests can be run on the website or can be
downloaded.

Official Website: Quadrillian

23) Ping API
It’s an automated API monitoring and testing tool. Very easy to use, lets the user create a
test case using JavaScript or Coffee Script, run tests and also has a feature where tests can
be scheduled. For any failures, the user gets notified through email, Slack and Hipchat.

Official Website: Ping API

24) Fiddler
Fiddler is a free debugging tool from Telerik. This tool is mainly used to monitor the network
traffic between a computer and the internet. This works well on any browser, any system,
and any platform. It’s also one of the best security testing tools for web applications
because of the technique it uses for decrypting HTTPS traffic. Official Website: Fiddler
25) WebInject
WebInject is a free tool used for testing web applications and web services. This is written in
Perl language and for running this on any platform, a Perl Interpreter is required. This tool
uses an XML API for creating test cases and generates HTML and XML report which
includes pass/fail status, errors, and response times. Overall it’s a good tool. Official
Website: WebInject
26) RedwoodHQ
This is an open-source tool that helps to test API SOAP/REST and supports multiple
languages like Java/Groovy, Python, and C #. This tool supports multi-threaded execution,
also allows the user to compare the results from each of the runs. Official
Website: RedwoodHQ
27) API Blueprint
API Blueprint is an open-source tool for API Developers and Testers. The tool uses very
simple syntax and also makes testing easy for testers. Official Website: API Blueprint
28) REST Client
It’s a Java application that supports testing RESTful web services and this can also be used
to test different types of HTTPs communications. Official Chrome extension: REST Client
29) Poster (Firefox Extension)
This Add-on lets the user set their Http requests by interacting with web services, and
generates results which can be verified by the user. Official Website: Poster (Firefox
Extension)
30) API Metrics
A very good tool for API monitoring. It supports running API calls anywhere and comes with
a very good analytical Dashboard. Official Website: API Metrics
31) RAML
RAML helps users by generating a lot of tests after the user has specified the HTTPS REST
API. This tool is well integrated with other testing tools like Postman, Vigia and lets a user
import tests from RAML to these tools. Official Website: RAML
32) Tricentis Tosca
Tosca, a model-based test API automation testing tool from Tricentis but also supports API
testing. Official Website: Tricentis Tosca
Conclusion
In this article, we have covered the information about API testing, and a list of top API
testing tools.

Out of these top tools, Postman, SoapUI, Katalon Studio, Swagger.io provide free and paid
plans. Whereas REST-Assured, JMeter, Karate DSL, and Airborne are open source tools
and are available for free.

Hope you will find this detailed comparison of the best API test tools helpful.
=>> Contact us to suggest a listing here.

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