An extension for Chrome, Edge and Firefox: it imports your Postman collections, needs no account, and is sold as a one-time licence.
Postman is a solid platform, and this page does not pretend otherwise. People look for an alternative for three concrete reasons: the mandatory vendor account, the removal of the offline Scratch Pad, and a desktop app that feels heavy for the job of sending a request. Here is what PolyApiIDE changes, what carries over from Postman, and when you should simply stay put.
The common triggers, in order of how often they come up.
If none of those apply to you, migrating for its own sake is a waste of an afternoon — see the honest list further down.
| Topic | PolyApiIDE | Postman |
|---|---|---|
| What you install | Extension for Chrome, Edge, Chromium, Firefox | Desktop app, web, cloud |
| Account needed | No: the free tier and sending requests work without signing in | Yes for collections and environments |
| Where collections live | Locally in the browser; anything leaving the device is an explicit export | Locally and/or in the vendor cloud |
| Licensing | Free, monthly, yearly, or a one-time lifetime licence | Subscription, per seat |
| Protocols | REST, GraphQL, WebSocket, SOAP, SSE, gRPC via JSON transcoding | REST, GraphQL, WebSocket, gRPC and the surrounding platform |
| Import | Postman collections and environments, OpenAPI, WSDL, GraphQL, .proto, AsyncAPI, curl, Insomnia, Hoppscotch, Thunder — on the free tier | Native formats, OpenAPI, cURL |
| QA and load | Request-level checks, scenarios, functional runner, load profiles, PDF reports | Collection runner, cloud monitors, Newman |
| Team work | Collection patches, export, snapshots — no realtime workspace | Shared workspaces, roles, team billing |
| Interface languages | English and Russian | English |
A longer head-to-head with Postman lives on the dedicated comparison page, including where Postman is plainly the better choice.
Import works on the free tier, so you can verify the migration before paying anything.
{{var}} substitution in URLs, headers and bodies; the short {var} form also works.pm.* scripts, monitors, mock servers, Flows and cloud workspace history. Assertions have to be rewritten in the PolyApiIDE syntax.In Postman: collection → Export → Collection v2.1. Environments export separately under Environments → Export. You end up with one or two JSON files.
From your browser store. No site account and no licence key — the free tier is active immediately, with up to two concurrent sessions.
Import the collection, then the environment. If you want to test the mechanics first, the examples page has ready-made Postman collection and environment samples.
Send two or three key requests, confirm variable substitution and auth, then move the logic of your old pm scripts into request-level checks and scenarios.
PolyApiIDE is not a Postman killer. These cases are genuinely better served by Postman.
No. The free tier works without a key and without an account: sending requests, collections, environments, variables and the whole import pipeline. Paid tiers unlock QA scenarios, load profiles, PDF reports and collection patches. A 24-hour demo key is also available by email.
Yes. The lifetime licence is a single payment: fixes are included, moving to the next major version is optional rather than forced, and new builds land in the archive immediately instead of waiting for store review.
No. Collections, environments and tokens are stored locally in the browser. Nothing leaves the device without an explicit action from you — an export, a patch or a snapshot. There is no background sync.
Yes: Chrome, Edge, other Chromium browsers and Firefox. There is no desktop app to install.
No. There is no CLI and no CI mode — runs are started from the interface. If CI execution is a requirement, keep a command-line runner for that part.