Milkman – The Better Alternative to Postman

The UI looks a bit outdated, it gives me vibes of some old software from 2000s somehow (probably because of the Java). And it would be really helpful to clearly state benefits of using Milkman instead of Postman right on the home page (e.g. performance benchmarks, UX, extendability, etc.). I see that it has some users and 1.3k stars so there're definitely some cool things in Milkman, probably you could just present them better

by dkdbejwi3831 hours ago|

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Both the application UI and website are giving open source option from 2008

by kjmr2 hours ago|

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It looks like a windows app running on macOS.

by upmostly2 hours ago|

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Are API testing UIs really relevant anymore? I haven't manually tested an API for almost two years, and my APIs are SO much better. This kind of GUI is going to die over the next 5 years.

Postman should be seriously worried.

by Mashimo1 hours ago|

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> Are API testing UIs really relevant anymore?

We have a postman collection mainly for testers to manually verify certain aspect of a otherwise fairly unit and end-to-end test covered API.

by mkesper1 hours ago|

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Export to curl?

by Mashimo39 minutes ago|

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They are testers, not devs. They don't know how to use command line, or edit environment variables.

by rs_rs_rs_rs_rs2 hours ago|

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I'm thinking the same thing, I haven't have a need for a tool like Postman in a long time, prompting is enough at this point. I wonder what features others use from Postman that an agent can't do quickly.

by ihavesomeexampl1 hours ago|

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Quickly eye-balling onprem responses, skipping over UIs and just eyeballing data in general is really useful. Curl can do it but with a couple headers it becomes messy, also RPCs, websockets, etc. It’s just convenient to have a single place where you can eyeball all comms.

by vr462 hours ago|

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You're not wrong - I bought a Bruno "Golden Edition" for $9 two years ago pre-release... and... I just don't use it. I'm not even sure why I keep it around, at 524.5 MB

...and... it's gone

by upmostly1 hours ago|

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That's an interesting point. I wonder if over the next X years consumers will free up ALOT of disk space by just using agents and not needing to download and install desktop software.

Full disclosure, I'm building a desktop app called DB Pro [1] which is a modern desktop database client.

We're still doing well, and selling a lot, but we're having to think about what the next 2/3/4/5 years look like...

[1] https://dbpro.app

by ethbr145 minutes ago|

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> if over the next X years consumers will free up ALOT of disk space by just using agents and not needing to download and install desktop software

Trading bits you own for rented redundant compute to recreate same seems... suboptimal?

How much power should we burn on everyone's agent recreating curl?*

* yes, agents have tools, but what is and isn't an agent tool is a gray area. "Desktop software" could be an agent tool with a human UI.

by Muromec1 hours ago|

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You will own nothing and be happy they said

by splittydev18 minutes ago|

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When I saw the UI, my first thought was "is that written in Java"? And indeed, it is. Kinda funny that it's so easy to spot that language based on its horrible default UI skins alone.

by sumedh1 hours ago|

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Looking at such ugly UI breaks my heart :(

by Jackson98Tom2 hours ago|

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Have you ever heard about Bruno?

by x3ro2 hours ago|

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Came here to say this. While not perfect, Bruno is certainly the best tool in this category that I have used :)

by jplunien3 hours ago|

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Why?

https://github.com/postmanlabs/postman-app-support/issues/14... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50354960

by ivanjermakov38 minutes ago|

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> New features regularly. There are more and more plugins/features coming.

Why all software needs to constantly evolve and grow with features? This is how you end up with what Postman has become.

by ehosca4 minutes ago|

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when will it run on AmigaOS?

by hobo12351 minutes ago|

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By the time I decided I should maybe try postman, I was absolutely turned off that it wants you to setup an account (for what?).

Went with Insomnia instead (which IIRC also wants an account now?) and now just some text-mode VSCode http client.

by Offirmo2 hours ago|

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What is better than the existing, established alternatives https://www.usebruno.com/ and https://insomnia.rest/ ?

by orng2 hours ago|

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Not that I necessarily recommend yaak but this post explains why Bruno and Insomnia are not to be trusted: https://royathan.com/blog/the-api-client-hunt/

by EspadaV92 hours ago|

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I switched to Yaak, initially compiled it myself but now paying for it. I've not had any issues with it, does what I need and keeps out of the way. Simple yaml files in Git is also nice. I would recommend giving it a spin. I think there is a trial, and you can build it yourself, with a bit of configuring.

by kind_of_serious1 hours ago|

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I would stay off Insomnia. A few versions ago, they practically took my local configuration ransom so they could force me to create a cloud account. Bruno is (still) not there, but the maintainers are slowly heading that way.

by asdfsa322 hours ago|

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Insomnia has been around for a while but just like this post from a new account, there is a lot of push for bruno, which is usually a redflag. Never trust things that are "preached" for free.

by prmoustache1 hours ago|

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what is wrong with curl and httpie (I mean the open source cli one, no idea what the desktop one does)?

by hoherd53 minutes ago|

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I know this is tongue-in-cheek, but every time somebody mentions Postman or Bruno, I think of https://justuse.org/curl because so much of is is true.

by hector842 hours ago|

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if you use VS Code, there are a lot of alternatives:

[0]: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=humao.re... - rest client storing config locally

[1]: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Christia...

[2]: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=prawel.r... - same as [0], but with GUI

[3]: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=slverma....

etc.

by pelagicAustral2 hours ago|

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I think Insomnia and Bruno are both non-native JS apps, I think the moat here is that "this" is not "that".

by herpderperator2 hours ago|

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The author appears to be suggesting that a key difference between Bruno and Insomnia is that Milkman not written in JavaScript/Electron, but rather JavaFx (i.e., Java) and thus is faster.

by shaaaade1 hours ago|

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I wish the milkman would deliver my milk... In the morning...

by fbnlsr1 hours ago|

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You have so many machines Richard

by manveerc2 hours ago|

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What’s next garbageman?