
Paw – HTTP and REST API Tester for Mac - davidbarker
http://www.luckymarmot.com/paw
======
krat0sprakhar
We use Postman[0] for all our API testing. Postman has Jetpacks which is great
way to write tests for any kind of APIs. Here's a recent blogpost on their
blog - [http://blog.getpostman.com/index.php/2014/03/07/writing-
auto...](http://blog.getpostman.com/index.php/2014/03/07/writing-automated-
tests-for-apis-using-postman/).

To top it all, the team just released Newman[1] which is a free and open-
source command line collection / test runner for APIs that can be directly
integrated into your build system.

[0] - [http://getpostman.com](http://getpostman.com)

[1] - [http://github.com/a85/Newman](http://github.com/a85/Newman)

~~~
johns
I see you've committed to Newman. Are you working with Postman?

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namuol
Anyone moaning about a $20 pricetag for software this sophisticated: how much
do you spend on food in a day?

On the other hand, I'm going to moan about how this isn't cross platform. I
would dish out $20 for a Linux version in a heartbeat... ;)

~~~
jedrek
Honestly, I'm a bit amazed. HN was falling over itself talking about fresh $5
sourdough loafs (which are about $1 at my local bakery) and a piece of high
quality software gets heeing and hawing at $20?

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dchuk
I just bought this yesterday actually. Hands down the best app for this use
case, and $20 is a steal when you weigh that cost against the value of
maintaining your own sanity.

Using this with ElasticSearch is almost fun.

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kingnight
This looks pretty terrific. The price point does have me pretty reluctant to
purchase it though.

I did want to mention in this thread that the cli utility 'httpie' has been
terrific since I found it a couple weeks ago.
[https://github.com/jakubroztocil/httpie](https://github.com/jakubroztocil/httpie)

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windexh8er
The time limited version was horribly broken for my short test on 10.9.2. Gave
up after 5 minutes.

Problems: * Could not add URL params * Request sent, no response output *
Could not modify headers

Basically the UI was so broken that I couldn't do anything with it
unfortunately. Maybe the paid for version works - but not going to plunk down
$20 when, in my case, the Chrome tools work far better.

~~~
dchuk
When did you give it a try? I bought it after using it for the full trial
period and I never had an issue with either version. Pretty sure there's just
a login on app launch that checks if you've paid, there's no difference
between free and paid versions at all.

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marcrosoft
This makes me not want to use this product: "One day VIM was replaced by
TextMate and Sublime."

Really?

~~~
petepete
If I had to put money on who'll be around in ten years, I know who I'd go
with.

~~~
sanderjd
Ha, it's funny that I don't actually have any idea from this comment who you
would put your money on. I would take the vim side of that bet directly
against sublime, but perhaps not against something-like-sublime.

~~~
colinbartlett
Vim was released in 1991 and is still incredibly popular today. Compare that
with the myriad other editors (I'm looking at you TextMate and Sublime) which
come and go. OP's money is on Vim and so is mine.

~~~
jeremymcanally
Textmate was released about a decade ago, so I guess we're measuring the
staying power of technologies in quarter centuries now? :)

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Corrado
I downloaded the free trial and gave it a quick workout with some of my
favorite REST URLs. Overall I like the look and feel of it, but the lack of
font control is a big problem for me. As I get older small, dark gray fonts on
a light gray just isn't comfortable for me.

It looks like a great tool to generate cURL commands as well as Ruby code, and
the S3 integration looks very useful. I agree that $20 looks a little pricy at
first, but if you develop/use REST APIs everyday, then this is cheap for a
good tool that saves you time.

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jcln
Great app. I've been using it for over a year, and I can tell that from noob
developers to VIM jedis, this Mac app is one of the best dev tool I know on OS
X.

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sdfjkl
This looks impressive. Sadly it wants to harvest my email address for the free
trial, so I didn't bother as I find that overly intrusive. I'm also concerned
about desktop software that requires a "login" for no good reason, as this can
result in the software no longer working when the online portal is unavailable
or shut down.

~~~
mittsh
If you get it from the Mac App Store, there is no need to give an email
address...

~~~
sdfjkl
I don't see a free trial there.

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greenpizza13
This is one of the worst apps for Mac I've ever seen. The user experience is
abhorrent.

It starts you off with a single request and no clear idea how to edit anything
but the name. I stumbled around to find that the view at the top right is what
I needed.

I then made an environment and 2 variables, HOST and PORT (like I do in
Postman) and placed those into the URL for the request. Made the request... no
response. Opening the bottom panel reveals that the variables have been
ignored.

Also, click anything wrong while editing a request and now the middle panel
doesn't reflect the left panel. I'm now looking at editing a request with my
custom variables on the left, but the right panel has an empty box.

Last but not least, when I try to type into that empty box the whole app
crashes.

I don't get it. This must have been rushed out to make a quick buck.

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TwistedWeasel
The App Store description calls this "Paw – The missing HTTP Client for OS X".

Why do we keep describing apps as "missing" from an OS? Surely we're not
implying that an OS should ship with all these different tools, right?

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22the+missing%22+*+from+OSX](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22the+missing%22+*+from+OSX)
(not the best search but it shows a few. In my mind I seem to recall having
read this a lot though)

Also, the app looks great. I'm using RESTed right now and looks like this does
all the things I wish RESTed would do.

~~~
sophacles
It's been standard for longer than I've been alive to overload $OS_NAME to
mean all of the following:

kernel

kernel + default userland

Kernel + default userland + kernel vendor add-ons

kernel + default userland + kernel vendor add-ons + ecosystem software

Also, since linux gained traction OS can frequently be interchanged with
distribution of a kernel + userland + packaging tools + software repository +
ecosystem, in various ways, and as above.

Not sure why you decided that OSX means strictly:

kernel + default userland

~~~
TwistedWeasel
Fair point, it's just how I interpreted it, others may read that differently.

I was just focused on the "missing" term, to me that implies something that
was once there or is notable in it's absence. However, as with many of the
things that describe themselves in this way, that is not the case.

In this particular case, HTTP clients for the OSX ecosystem are not missing,
they're just not that great.

In general I just dislike the wording.

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eddieroger
I bought Paw after exercising the free trial and have been very happy with it.
My favorite thing thus far was a feature request I sent to the developer
actually got implemented in one subsequent release. I paid prior to that, and
don't regret it. Saving requests is nice, but being able to generate useful
ObjC based around several different networking stacks is amazing. The price is
steep, but it's clear a lot of worm has gone in to the app, and the dev
deserves to be compensated for it.

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yeskia
I discovered this about 2 weeks ago and it is hands-down the best API tester
I've found. I've also used Echo and RESTed on Mac which were great, but this
blows them out of the water. Even Postman, which I find to be a pain in the
browser (and especially the newer versions, which require a separate browser
window). Well worth the $20.

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larksimian
I like the idea of the app, however I can't seem to figure out how do send in
a nested JSON object in my request body such as {user:{email:"b@s.c",
password:"password", password_confirmation:"password"}}. It seems to only
allow flat request bodies?

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bearlikelion
Although it looks pretty, the $20 price tag is going to keep me away.

I'm using Postman and REST Easy in my browser for current HTTP/REST API
testing, although I would love a real cross-platform desktop client.

~~~
denizozger
Same here, I'm using Advanced REST client and very happy with it. Plus it is
indeed advanced and have many features with Paw in common.
([https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/advanced-rest-
clie...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/advanced-rest-
client/hgmloofddffdnphfgcellkdfbfbjeloo))

~~~
rickyc091
+1 to Advanced REST. I use to use that, but these days I use postman
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/postman-rest-
clien...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/postman-rest-
client/fdmmgilgnpjigdojojpjoooidkmcomcm?hl=en)

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jimmcslim
Given the rise of Xamarin, support for C# would be great as well (the recently
updated PaintCode has supported Xamarin/C# code generation since its first
release I think).

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nichochar
I use it, and love it. It just works, and great support

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yawz
How does it compare to Postman?

~~~
welfare
Especially now when they've introduced Jetpacks. A comparison would be great.

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mrtimo
on the page, I can't see anything in the "code generation" section

~~~
mholt
Takes a moment to load...

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metaedge
No Oauth2 support :(

~~~
jcln
Yeah, but with Dynamic Values, you can totally overcome that problem.

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e28eta
Any favorite iPad apps for the same thing?

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31reasons
This one is a real time saver.

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hoers
The page crashes Tint Browser on Android 4.3 (edit: and is blank on another,
proprietary browser)

