I am a manual tester who wants to learn API automation testing. What tool is easiest and quickest to learn please?
Your recommendations will be highly appreciated.
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Postman is still free and easy to learn. Same thing for Jmeter, although the learning curve is a little more steep. ReadyAPI is pretty good too, but you will need a trial license for that.
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As someone who can program I prefer to use anything code based which is most times completely free.
I like the REST-Assured library very much. It is available in Java and a .Net variante (by @bas) is in the making.
If you can imagine to make it a bit into programming, you will find a very powerful, and also easy to use, tool.
Maybe your developers can kick-start you here.
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I’m going to make an assumption here and guess that you are not technical to start with?
Then as mentioned above, Postman has a really nice UI and it’s learning curve is very low. You could go for a SoapUI, which doesn’t have a nice UI but does easier support SOAP API’s
If you are technical and want to get more into the programming side, restAssured is a good start although I’m not a fan of Java so you could pick up restSharp
This playlist is very helpful, he explains it pretty well:
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I agree with Postman, it requires minimal programming knowledge and can be integrated with CI/CD pipelines. There are a lot of good tutorials on YouTube and Udemy, especially the ones from Valentin Despa.
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Hello,
Based on my experience, I would suggest two great tools for API automation testing: Postman and REST Assured.
For a beginner-friendly option with a user-friendly interface, Postman is the way to go. It doesn’t require extensive coding and allows you to create, manage, and execute API requests easily. Its built-in features like environment variables and response validation make testing a breeze.
On the other hand, if you’re comfortable with Java and prefer writing tests in Java, REST Assured is an excellent choice. It offers a concise and expressive way to write API tests, and its integration with popular testing frameworks like JUnit and TestNG is a big plus.
Both tools have their strengths, so pick the one that aligns better with your testing needs and coding expertise. You can check with my latest article here: API Testing Postman Vs Rest Assured: Advantages and Challenges - Testrig Technologies
Happy testing!
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Yes this was most powerful tool . I am using this.
As many have mentioned, Postman is a great choice. Postman known for its user-friendly interface, making it straightforward to create and run API tests without complex coding. It’s a great tool to begin with, as you can start by building basic requests and validating responses with just a few clicks.
As you gain confidence, you can gradually explore more advanced functionalities like test scripting and environment management.
One of the advantages of using Postman is its extensive community support and vast documentation. There are many YouTube tutorials and blogs tailored for beginners and intermediate users.
Hope this helps!
Postman is probably the most obvious and useful. Free Code Camp has an excellent 2-hour course to get you up and running, which runs you through things in the order a tester would need them.
I would strongly encourage you to check out PactumJS. It’s an intuitive, scalable JS automation framework that handles both REST API + GraphQL in terms of API automation testing.
Official docs: https://pactumjs.github.io/
10 min step-by-step tutorial on this manner
What do you know about APIs? protocols, types, web services, etc…?
What’s your experience in testing APIs?
What’s your programming experience?
Which level of API automation do you want to achieve? (unit testing, performance, security, integration, schema validation, data validations, function checks, etc…)
Does your current workplace use such APIs? does it develop or use external APIs?
Do you have access to developers inside your company with API experience?
Is there some framework that’s already used by the developers inside the company?
Do you have the freedom to implement whatever you want?
He is not technical so this is a way deeper learning curve for him.
I’m making the assumption he doesn’t even know how to add dependencies. So something more low-code premade would probably fit better for him.
Undoubtedly postman but i would also suggest rest assure.So many tutorials and you may like it too.
cURL alongside ChatGPT may allow you very quickly interact with the API as you want during your testing session.
I suggest learning Python and pytest to automate API checks. It may not be the easiest or quickest way but with the help of AI tools (ChatGPT and Github Copilot), it can become simpler. By doing so, you can not only solve the task of automation but also get invaluable skills to create more scalable and adaptable solutions. This can be supported by even devs (especially if you have a Python dev in your team)
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