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Postman acquires Akita for automated API observability

blog.postman.com

11–20 of 124 posts

Re: Postman acquires Akita for automated API observability

#11
post #5

Congrats to the Akita team! Repository is 2 years old. That's a pretty quick exit.

jean yang is pretty much an industry legend at this point, and was hyperfocused on her specific kind of o11y (ebpf based drop-in traffic monitoring) which is an obviously important part of an overall o11y product suite that i think many players would either have to build or buy. i imagine she had her pick of acquirers. edit: check out her interviews! crazy impressive https://www.listennotes.com/top-podcasts/jean-yang…

I've actually seen more of her name than Akita itself. In a way, that's great marketing.

Re: Postman acquires Akita for automated API observability

#12
post #5

Congrats to the Akita team! Repository is 2 years old. That's a pretty quick exit.

jean yang is pretty much an industry legend at this point, and was hyperfocused on her specific kind of o11y (ebpf based drop-in traffic monitoring) which is an obviously important part of an overall o11y product suite that i think many players would either have to build or buy. i imagine she had her pick of acquirers. edit: check out her interviews! crazy impressive https://www.listennotes.com/top-podcasts/jean-yang…

hate to be a prick but is there a difference between o11y and observability? or is the word observability just too long to type out

Re: Postman acquires Akita for automated API observability

#14
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an absolutely crazy valuation for the product / industry. Ultimately they're competing with free & good enough. What's their moat?

As long as they're approximately the only "enterprise" option, that's a moat all by itself. No comment on the valuation, but it makes for a very resilient business.

[deleted]

Re: Postman acquires Akita for automated API observability

#15
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

jean yang is pretty much an industry legend at this point, and was hyperfocused on her specific kind of o11y (ebpf based drop-in traffic monitoring) which is an obviously important part of an overall o11y product suite that i think many players would either have to build or buy. i imagine she had her pick of acquirers. edit: check out her interviews! crazy impressive https://www.listennotes.com/top-podcasts/jean-yang…

hate to be a prick but is there a difference between o11y and observability? or is the word observability just too long to type out

Yup - same idea as a11y - just easier to type. :-)

Re: Postman acquires Akita for automated API observability

#16

Try as they might, I don't think Postman will ever be able to justify that $5.6bn valuation...

Does postman do anything curl doesn’t? When I was on onboarding at a job my pair started teaching me postman, which ended with me teaching them curl and them dropping postman. If you need to share queries, put them in version control!

Re: Postman acquires Akita for automated API observability

#17
post #7

Try as they might, I don't think Postman will ever be able to justify that $5.6bn valuation...

Now they are forcing to register to their platform to continue using the collections for free. So most of the users will have to enter their data, or just leave the product (difficult, there's not that much alternative)

Really? I haven't used Postman since Insomnia came out. What's keeping you with Postman?

Re: Postman acquires Akita for automated API observability

#18
post #7

Try as they might, I don't think Postman will ever be able to justify that $5.6bn valuation...

Now they are forcing to register to their platform to continue using the collections for free. So most of the users will have to enter their data, or just leave the product (difficult, there's not that much alternative)

There's plenty of alternatives.

Re: Postman acquires Akita for automated API observability

#19

I have never used Postman, but I am curious, how useful or good, if any, their product is? given the recent bashing it received for being over-valued and being just a wrapper around curl. If people like it and are willing to pay for it, isn't its valuation justified, which I think is true for any startup in general.

Postman was fantastic as a GUI for curl many years ago.

After raising money, they bloated the app with confusing, half-baked features, and whoever was in charge of their usability really botched it. It's unusable now and I used to dread opening it up.

I switched to Firecamp[1] and have been very happy with it.

1. https://firecamp.io/

Re: Postman acquires Akita for automated API observability

#20
post #6
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

jean yang is pretty much an industry legend at this point, and was hyperfocused on her specific kind of o11y (ebpf based drop-in traffic monitoring) which is an obviously important part of an overall o11y product suite that i think many players would either have to build or buy. i imagine she had her pick of acquirers. edit: check out her interviews! crazy impressive https://www.listennotes.com/top-podcasts/jean-yang…

o18y = "observability" to save you a click.

Thanks, I had no idea that was even a supposed abbreviation.
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