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Postman acquires Akita for automated API observability

blog.postman.com

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Re: Postman acquires Akita for automated API observability

#31

Post by sebmellen »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #25
phpnode wrote: 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?

> What's their moat? I find this question really annoying. Almost all tech companies have no moat except for maybe brand and network moat which postman also kinda has. What's Apple's moat? Or Google's?

What is Apple’s moat? They have an integrated hardware and manufacturing supply chain with their own OS and a proprietary chip architecture that no other device manufacturer on earth competes with!

Re: Postman acquires Akita for automated API observability

#32

Post by YetAnotherNick »

asfasfo wrote: post #30
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's their moat? I find this question really annoying. Almost all tech companies have no moat except for maybe brand and network moat which postman also kinda has. What's Apple's moat? Or Google's?

Google has a search index. Apple has hardware & manufacturing IP.

How is search index a moat? It's hard to build, yes, but there is no moat here and anyone can build it as long as they have infra, talent and money.

Also for Apple while I am not sure, but looking at the Android phones there is hardly any feature of Apple which hasn't been covered by some Android phone, so I don't think IP is an issue. It's just that overall quality is much more consistent for Apple across generations that it has built a good brand.

Re: Postman acquires Akita for automated API observability

#33

Post by re-thc »

andrewguenther wrote: post #2

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

> I don't think Postman will ever be able to justify that $5.6bn valuation...

Maybe when they actually deliver parcels like an actual postman? Fedex is worth more.

Re: Postman acquires Akita for automated API observability

#34

Post by oweiler »

josephd79 wrote: post #18
madduci wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

E.g. https://www.usebruno.com

Re: Postman acquires Akita for automated API observability

#36

Post by candiddevmike »

asfasfo wrote: post #28
finitestateuni wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

postman was essentially built as a easy GUI version of curl. Once it went the VC route it kinda jumped the shark.

> X was essentially built as a easy GUI version of Y. Once it went the VC route it kinda jumped the shark.

Pretty much applies to a lot of startups. VC money does weird things.

Re: Postman acquires Akita for automated API observability

#37

Post by finitestateuni »

tombert wrote: post #27
finitestateuni wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Does curl support websockets? It might, but I think the appeal of Postman is how straightforward it is to play with APIs across basically anything in the HTTP stack, with a nice GUI. Also, I thought Postman also had the ability to export your queries to curl if you want to need to use it outside Postman.

It does, but the support is not great. There’s active work to make it better. We don’t use WebSockets so that might be why my colleagues didn’t have too much attachment to postman. We have a list of bash functions we import into our zshrc/bashrc that just wrap around curl with some parts pre-filled and automatically grabbed creds from ENV as needed. It’s a better workflow since you don’t need to switch applications and you can chain calls together with some glue.

Re: Postman acquires Akita for automated API observability

#38

Post by drewcoo »

finitestateuni wrote: post #16
andrewguenther wrote: post #2

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!

> Does postman do anything curl doesn’t?

Yes! It's supports functional BDD-style tests, "mock servers" (really "fake" servers), a walled garden for saving and sharing data (to frustrate engineering managers and ops folks), perf tests (soon? now?), contract testing, and more. Did I mention that it's a GUI tool, so it must be "easier?"

They're trying to become a one-stop-shop for dumbing down web dev. Ideally, inside the walled garden. That has a certain appeal to management.

Re: Postman acquires Akita for automated API observability

#39

Post by YetAnotherNick »

sebmellen wrote: post #31
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's their moat? I find this question really annoying. Almost all tech companies have no moat except for maybe brand and network moat which postman also kinda has. What's Apple's moat? Or Google's?

What is Apple’s moat? They have an integrated hardware and manufacturing supply chain with their own OS and a proprietary chip architecture that no other device manufacturer on earth competes with!

It's just because they have money. It will take billions of dollars and multiple years for other companies to reach that but I don't see any moat except if money is the moat.

Same with postman. Right now they are so much ahead in features that it would take multiple years for other company to match it.

Re: Postman acquires Akita for automated API observability

#40

Post by candiddevmike »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #25
phpnode wrote: 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?

> What's their moat? I find this question really annoying. Almost all tech companies have no moat except for maybe brand and network moat which postman also kinda has. What's Apple's moat? Or Google's?

Maybe these companies having no moat is part of the problem, though I would argue "stickiness" or "inertia" props a lot of them up, Hotel California style.
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