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20 API Clients That Are Quietly Replacing Postman in 2025
API Clients Developers Are Quietly Switching to in 2025
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Not long ago, Postman was the API tool everyone defaulted to. It was the one you recommended to a new developer, the one companies standardized on, and often the only one people knew existed. But as API ecosystems matured and real-world use cases expanded, Postman stopped being the only — or even necessarily the best — tool for every situation.
Over the past year, I’ve spent a lot of time inside this growing ecosystem. Partly because of personal need, and partly because I’ve watched teams I work with run into very different problems that Postman no longer solves well. Privacy concerns. Real-time protocols. Local-first workflows. Security audits. Even something as simple as wanting requests version-controlled alongside code.
What surprised me wasn’t that there were alternatives — but how good they’ve quietly become. What follows isn’t just a list of tools. This is a reflection of where API tooling really sits right now in 2025, based on real work, real pain points, and a lot of hands-on time with each of these.
