Tools for REST webservice testing

Question

I was using SOAPUI to test SOAP web services.But now i have to Test Rest Services.

I understand that SOAPUI can be used to test REST services too.

But can SOAPUI be considered as Standard Testing tool for REST webservices from a QA standpoint.

Answer 1

We use Postman for considerable basic testing during the early stages of development. We then have used Gatling (http://gatling.io/#/) to facilitate load, regression, and stress testing.

Answer 2

A lot of devs I know use PostMan, a Chrome app. I have written my own tool using .Net that allows me to use pre-formatted requests with a given type reflected from a .dll file. A REST client is like a browser. It makes a request and does something with the response (like printing out the JSON response).

Answer 3

Part of the issue with RESTful Web APIs is there really isn't a standard as of yet. If there is a WADL for the Web API than SoapUI will typically work well. If not, than you're going to spend as much time, if not more, using SoapUI to work with your system than you would with any of the slew of tools that either exist or can be custom created.

I am typically a proponent of SoapUI and if you are familiar with the workings of SoapUI, Groovy and such, and have others tests using it than I would likely suggest that you stick with SoapUI. If not, you might want to start looking into other tools and see which one fits your needs best.

Postman is good for making basic requests and doing smoke testing. JMeter is good for load testing. But ultimately, if SoapUI is what you are comfortable with than it will offer you what Postman and JMeter can offer you as well.

I'd recommend SoapUI, even though it may not be the best suited for your needs, it seems to be the best suited for you.

Answer 4

From functional point of view - yes.

However if you considering performing load testing at some point I would start looking into starting web services testing automation with a tool which is capable of running requests in multithreaded manner like Grinder or Apache JMeter.

Answer 5

Try HttpMaster which focuses on REST and API testing.
It supports dynamic parameters, validation of response data, various data viewers, etc. You can also save all your test definitions as HttpMaster project (single file) to reopen them later or use on another machine.

Answer 6

For testing web services, try Runscope. You can test services on your local machine, on staging, as well as those running in the cloud -- all using the same test definition. For production monitoring/testing, you can set up schedules to run automatically. For CI, you can trigger tests to run against your service in any environment. There's a usage tier that's completely free of charge, too.

Answer 7

I'm going to agree with PaulDonny's first sentence. There is no standard tool for web services. All of the answers here give great examples of tools that work well. As much as I personally dislike SoapUI, I have seen testers use it very well for REST services.

I'd like to present two additional options however.

The first, which really only works well if the service is in .NET, is the WCF Test Client. Although it says WCF, I've seen it work well for many services.

The second, which is my personal preferred, is to roll your own. For each of the services that I test, whether they be REST or SOAP, I build out a windows form to interface with the service with elements for each of the variables in the URI and the payload, as well as elements to change the verb, content type, headers, etc. Throw in the ability to do impersonation, links to documentation, health checks etc, and you've got yourself a one stop shop for testing your service. It takes some extra work up front, and some additional maintenance, but, works like a charm.

Answer 8

Postman is a simple and elegant tool for REST API's testing. It can be used for

• Verifying response codes ( 200, 400, 500 )
• Verifying json
• Writing simple tests which gets executed each time you call API

Answer 9

If you would love to automate testing of REST API then Rest Assured is the best JAVA library that you can opt for. You can create Page Object Models and make it a part of your existing UI Testing Framework too.

Below is the official guide for the same:

rest-assured/rest-assured

OR

You may also follow the step by step tutorial which I have created for REST Assured:

Testing Rest Services using Rest Assured

Thanks,

Ashwin Karangutkar

Answer 10

Command-line tools for functional tests

• curl command line tool

UI-based for functional tests

• Postman Web browser add-on
• SOAP UI

Java libraries for functional testing

• REST-assured
• Retrofit

Answer 11

Karate is a relatively new project that is specialized for testing HTTP API-s of all kinds including SOAP and REST.

Disclaimer: am dev.

One of the highlights of Karate is that although it runs on the JVM - since it is based on Cucumber, you don't need programming knowledge to be able to write tests.

There is an extensive set of demos and examples that can get you started very easily.

Answer 12

Aggree with Paul Muir

SOAPUI is simple enough to get started on REST webservices. Just create a new SOAPUI rest project and import the WADL. Personally it took me couple of days getting to know the SOAPUI elements and groovy scripting.

Moreover you can use your SOAPUI projects to run through maven.

Answer 13

I use Thor (http://www.mightythor.net), it integrates with jmeter and ALM. It's free and all the functionality is available (no professional version filtering)