Postman Tutorial 1 – Introduction of The Postman Tool – A tool just not for API testing

Introduction

This is the first post in Postman – End to End series. We will start with the introduction of the Postman tool and try to cover all concepts of it. I hope it will be helpful for you people to get a deep knowledge of the Postman tool.

Topics you will learn from this post

1. Introduction to Postman tool
2. Features of Postman tool

Postman – A tool just not for API testing

Postman tool is the Collaboration Platform for API Development which simplifies each step of building an API and streamline collaboration so you can create better API faster.

The Official website of Postman introduces itself as above and that clearly emphasizes that “Postman is not only an API testing tool.”.

Postman is a complete API development environment/suite which supports every stage of the API lifecycle. 

Design – Develop – Test – Collaborate.

Through design, testing, and full production, Postman is there for faster, easier API development—without the chaos.

Capabilities of Postman tool

Below are some capabilities of the Postman tool with short descriptions:-

1. API Client
2. Automated Testing
3. Design & Mock
4. Documentation
5. Monitors
6. Workspaces

API Client

• We can send SOAP, REST, and GraphQL requests directly using Postman as it acts as an API client.
• We can create execute any REST, SOAP, and GraphQL queries from within Postman.
• It supports different types of payload for API like raw, binary, multipart, multimedia, etc.
• View the status code, response time, and response size. Postman’s automatic language detection, link and syntax highlighting, search, and text formatting make it easy to inspect the response body.
• Instead of creating calls manually to send over the command line, all you need is a Postman Collection. Import a collection directly or generate one with one click from an API schema in the RAML, WADL, OpenAPI, or GraphQL format or a data file containing the cURL commands.

Automated Testing

• Automated checks on API can be developed using Postman scripting which can be version controlled and integrated with CICD.
• Beautiful HTML reports are also generated.
• It makes API development and testing faster.
• Data-driven API testing is possible.
• Newman plays a vital role in automated testing using Postman.
• It supports Javascript for automated checks and scripts and integrates many JS packages.

Design & Mock

• Integration testing is difficult if the dependent module is under development or down. Postman’s mock API servers simplify design and planning, support split-stack development, and help you ensure that your API will run the way it’s supposed to in production.
• Postman mocks support split-stack development so front-end and back-end developers can work in parallel and view responses without spinning up the back end.
• Postman helps you to see Exactly How Your API will Run—Even Before It’s in Production.

Documentation

• Documentation is an important part and helps anyone to understand things. Documentation must be cleaner and clear.
• Postman generates and publishes beautiful, machine-readable documentation to make your API easier to consume.
• We can create Reliable, Shareable, and Easy-to-follow Documentation With Postman.

Monitors

• Checking API Response and Performance is Simple with Postman.
• Postman API Monitoring allows you to review your API responses, availability, and performance with each run so you can ensure that your API is always healthy.

Workspaces

• A workspace is a shared context for building and consuming APIs.
• Postman workspaces allow real-time collaboration within and between teams with built-in version control.
• It is a paid service from Postman and it is worth it.

Postman tool is available for free and paid versions. They have plans and pricing. You can check them here.

From a tester’s point of view, the Postman tool is very much used for manual and automated API testing. Postman is the first choice for API testing now.

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Next Post –> Postman Tutorial Part 2 – Installation Of Postman Tool – Chrome App, Native App And Web App