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Paw – macOS HTTP client for testing and describing APIs

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Re: Paw – macOS HTTP client for testing and describing APIs

#21

Post by joshstrange »

This will obviously make some people think of Postman so I wanted to give my take. I, along with my team, currently use Postman (without team sync). I'd love to switch to Paw but I think we are close to getting the company to pay for team sync and I'd hate to pay $50 then have to constantly be exporting/importing into PostmanPaw.

I'd jump on Paw for the whole team as the $10/mo for the entire team for syncing is very attractive vs Postman Pro $8/user/mo (hell, I'd pay it myself) but I am the only macOS user (the rest on linux) and while we can debate the value of electron apps all day long they do serve a purpose.

Re: Paw – macOS HTTP client for testing and describing APIs

#22

Post by mosselman »

I have a Paw license and recently I started using Insomnia instead: https://insomnia.rest/

I find Paw's project management very annoying. It assumes that I am working on some project and wants me to organise everything like that. Fine, lets do it, so where are my projects? They are hidden in some dropdown that you can have fun finding.

Insomnia is much cleaner and more to the point.

Re: Paw – macOS HTTP client for testing and describing APIs

#23

Post by dorian-graph »

For quick-and-dirty things I use cURL or httpie otherwise I use Paw (and have for about a year now). I had previously used Postman before that, but even then Paw was a better app—native app so it looked better + felt faster, nicer collections, better default shortcuts, etc.

Paw has a lot of power behind it, otherwise if you're just doing basic POST requests, stick to httpie. The code generators and extensions are nice. Easily switching between environments (e.g. dev, staging, prod). History of run requests. Tying values from other requests into other requests—e.g. get an auth token from a login request, and use that in a header in all other requests. I still only use a fairly basic amount of the features too. It's a very polished app, and the devs seem good too.

Re: Paw – macOS HTTP client for testing and describing APIs

#24

Post by danpalmer »

coreyja wrote: post #20
s_dev wrote: post #10

I have Paw through my SetApp bundle that I pay €9 a month for. Don't think I'd buy it as it's basically the same as Postman though maybe a little prettier.

This is my first time hearing about `SetApp` but it sounds like an interesting concept. How do you feel about it? How many apps from it so you use often/daily? Worth the $10 a month?

I had a trial and found the selection for developers wasn't worth the $10.

There are a few little utilities, like the Regex tester, that are definitely neat and well made, but given the once a month I actually need that functionality, I'll just use a crappy web app for it.

Most of the software I found to be the 3rd best in its category (or worse), for example, It doesn't have OmniFocus or Things, it has a bunch of to-do list apps I've never heard of that all have poor design and UX. Besides that there's a lot of the soft of system enhancer software that I thought made my computer go faster when I was younger but that I've now realised is mostly pointless.

For me to resubscribe to SetApp, I'd want to see best-in-class apps like Things, OmniFocus, SublimeText (or even BBEdit, I'm not a fan, but it's a good Mac app), RapidWeaver (again, not for me, but good for many), Transmit, Coda, Delicious Library, etc. I'd probably pay more than $10 for that sort of selection.

Re: Paw – macOS HTTP client for testing and describing APIs

#26

Post by mcescalante »

mosselman wrote: post #22

I have a Paw license and recently I started using Insomnia instead: https://insomnia.rest/ I find Paw's project management very annoying. It assumes that I am working on some project and wants me to organise everything like that. Fine, lets do it, so where are my projects? They are hidden in some dropdown that you can have fun finding. Insomnia is much cleaner and more to the point.

Other reasons that I also like Insomnia (I've used Paw as well):

- Cross platform

- Simpler use for non-experts

- No need for pro (paid subscription) for my needs, so it's completely free

- Feels nicer than all of the browser "REST explorer" plugins

Re: Paw – macOS HTTP client for testing and describing APIs

#27

Post by Philipp__ »

InTheArena wrote: post #5

$50? Ouch. I support developers making a living, but this is a market with a lot of competition, some of it free, some of it great, and some of it free and great. If it were $19, the professional looking UI would have had me pull the trigger, but $50 is way on the other side of of my price sensitivity.

Good, reliable tool, with great native UI is very well worth one time $50 purchase.

Re: Paw – macOS HTTP client for testing and describing APIs

#29

Post by dewey »

I use Paw almost every day and my usual workflow is:

1) Copy request as curl from the Chrome Inspector

2) Import curl command into Paw via their importer

3) Inspect request, play around with parameters etc.

That is a really great feature of Paw and saves a lot of time and is worth the money for it. I also discovered some bugs and reported them and they were usually fixed in the next release and the developer is fast and responsive about them.

Re: Paw – macOS HTTP client for testing and describing APIs

#30

Post by spdustin »

coreyja wrote: post #20
s_dev wrote: post #10

I have Paw through my SetApp bundle that I pay €9 a month for. Don't think I'd buy it as it's basically the same as Postman though maybe a little prettier.

This is my first time hearing about `SetApp` but it sounds like an interesting concept. How do you feel about it? How many apps from it so you use often/daily? Worth the $10 a month?

My daily apps from SetApp:

    ‣ HazeOver (dims any window without focus by a simply-configurable amount)
    ‣ Mosaic (window position/size management), TextSoap (quick text-cleansing recipes)
    ‣ Timing (track time spent in all apps/paths for client billing)
    ‣ Marked (Markdown editor with live preview)
    ‣ Paw
I also use:

    ‣ Gemini (dupe file finder)
    ‣ Chronicle (bill organizer)
    ‣ NetSpot (wifi analyzer)
For me, it's definitely worth it.
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