JetClient vs Postman

This comparison highlights JetClient’s advantages over Postman, with most points also applying to other API clients like Insomnia, HTTPie Desktop, and Hoppscotch.

IDE Integration vs Standalone App

  • Postman operates as a standalone application with its own script editor, which has limited functionality compared to a professional IDE.
  • JetClient integrates directly with JetBrains IDEs, providing access to advanced features such as code completion, navigation, documentation, refactoring, and AI assistance through tools like GitHub Copilot and JetBrains AI Assistant.

Local Files vs Cloud Storage

  • Postman stores collections in its cloud infrastructure, which may raise privacy concerns for organizations.
  • JetClient keeps collections on your local filesystem, ensuring complete data privacy and full control over your API documentation and testing assets.

Git-Based vs UI-Based Collaboration

  • Postman uses a proprietary collaboration UI with complex role management and enterprise features.

  • JetClient follows Git’s standard workflow for team collaboration, allowing familiar operations like merging, branching, and conflict resolution.

    All JetClient content (requests, folders, and scripts) is stored in separate Markdown files with dedicated code blocks: metadata in TOML, variables in JSON5, and scripts in JavaScript. These Markdown files provide built-in syntax highlighting in IDEs and on platforms like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket, making it easy to review and merge changes.

Code-First Testing vs Visual Testing

  • Postman provides two ways to write test scenarios: organizing requests in folders (which often requires duplicating requests for different scenarios) or using the no-code “Flow” editor. However, with the folder-based approach, implementing complex test logic with loops and conditions relies on workarounds like setNextRequest, making tests harder to read and maintain. Running requests in parallel is even more challenging and not natively supported.
  • JetClient takes a more flexible approach. While you can still organize requests in folders, its key feature is the ability to write test scenarios in JavaScript, just like in any other programming language. This allows you to build complex logic using conditions, loops, and reusable functions while leveraging the UI to create and manage requests. Requests can be easily referenced in scripts and executed sequentially or in parallel, making test automation more efficient and maintainable.

Multiple Active Environments vs Single Active Environment

  • Postman allows only one active environment at a time. In complex testing scenarios, you may need different contexts such as user roles, clients, tenants, regions, device platforms, or API versions, each requiring different sets of variables. In Postman, this means creating multiple environments that combine these contexts. For example, you might have DEV_USER, DEV_ADMIN, PROD_USER, and PROD_ADMIN environments. This approach leads to duplicated variables and increased maintenance overhead. Adding another context results in a combinatorial explosion.
  • JetClient introduces environment groups, allowing you to select multiple environments simultaneously—one from each group. You can create groups for environments (Dev/Prod), roles (User/Admin), etc., and combine them using a multi-selection dropdown, making it easy to switch between different contexts.

JSON5 Variables vs Table Variables

  • Postman uses a table view for variables, which is limited to simple values and makes large variable sets difficult to manage. Arrays, objects, and complex strings are hard to work with in small table cells. If you need a JSON object, you must store it as a string and parse it in the script.
  • JetClient uses JSON5 for variables, allowing values to be not only primitives but also objects, arrays, and expressions. JSON5 supports comments, which are useful for describing variables. It also supports unquoted properties and single-quoted values, making it cleaner and more readable.

Functions and Expressions vs Dynamic Variables

  • Postman provides predefined dynamic variables like {{$randomInt}}, but they don’t support arguments, custom variables, or expressions.
  • JetClient includes a similar set of predefined functions for random data generation, but some functions support arguments, such as {{ $randomInt(1, 10) }}, and can be used within expressions like {{5 + myIntVar * $randomInt(1, 10)}}. In addition to random data generation, JetClient provides powerful utility functions such as: - $readFile - Reads file content
    • $pickOne, $pickSome - Picks one or multiple values from a provided array
    • $repeat - Creates arrays from a given value
    • $textInput, $comboBoxInput, $dateInput, etc. - User prompts with various input types, grouped into a single dialog when used together
    • $eval - Evaluates custom JavaScript expressions, allowing calls to your own functions defined in the Init Script
    • $exec - Executes shell commands, useful for running external scripts or commands like vault, aws, etc.

Expressions can be used not only where variables are referenced but also in variable values:

{
  $randomUser: {
    id: {{ $uuid }},
    email: {{ $randomEmail }}
  },
  
  users: {{ $repeat($randomUser, 10) }}, // Creates an array of 10 random users
  
  credentials: {
    login: {{ $textInput("Enter login") }},
    password: {{ $passwordInput("Enter password") }}
  }
}

Shared and Local Variable Separation

  • Postman has initial and current values for variables, which, aside from the confusing naming (these are essentially shared and local values), are redundant for most variables. Variables are usually either shared (like baseUrl, which doesn’t need a local value) or local (like token, which doesn’t need an initial value).
  • JetClient keeps shared and local variables clearly separated using distinct JSON5 editors in a split-view interface.

Environment-Specific Folder Variables

  • Postman only supports common folder variables that are shared across all environments.
  • JetClient supports both common and environment-specific folder variables, allowing you to define environment-dependent values at the folder level.

Auto-Save vs Manual Save

  • Postman forces you to choose between manual saving (clicking “Save” for each change) or auto-save (which applies all changes immediately, including unintended ones). This can lead to either extra steps to avoid data loss or unintended modifications being saved automatically.
  • JetClient eliminates this tradeoff by combining auto-save and manual save. Changes are always preserved in the plugin state, ensuring that no progress is lost. At the same time, saving to sync files can be configured to happen either automatically or manually using ‘Save’ and ‘Restore’ actions, giving you full control over when changes are finalized.