Postman vs writing tests programmatically using curl or related vs unit tests

Question

I am new to Rest API testing and this questions might be asked already.

We are building a Rest API for our react applications using Laravel Framework (PHP). We want to test it but we are confused what automated tests approaches we needed.

We went to look for the best way to test our API and found Postman, which is far most popular of all. Now our questions are:

• since we are gonna use Postman, do we need to forget about writing automated tests for our API using curl programmatically?
• do we still need to write Unit Tests for certain sections of the API?
• what are your suggestions to accomplish the same goals of testing Properly our Backend API?

Answer 1

Let's take a step back and start by asking what are you trying to achieve. Rest API is an API like any other API, hiding behind it a lot or a little. I suppose that in our case there is a whole system behind the API, a system that you want to test. For me, this answers your last questions you need proper tests at different levels for you backend as well as your frontend where applicable.

I don't think there is a "one rule to rule them all" answer to your question about tools, my team is using Python with Request package and our tests are extremely simple, flexible and stable, but this requires some programming knowledge.

Others swear on Postman, and I have seen curl being used but there are many other tools with different levels of functionality and different levels of needed programming skills, so again start by understanding what are your resources and what are you trying to achieve, for example Postman will be less flexible in analyzing the logic behind the test.

Answer 2

I use SoapUI Pro (there is a free version which has some of the Pro features turned off) Its very easy to learn, the company (Smartbear) also do regular web training sessions which are open to all (including those using the free version)

Mark.