Milkman – The Better Alternative to Postman(milkman.dev)

40 pointsby jplunien3 hours ago16 comments

biinjo4 minutes ago
We are in an age where it’s easier to vibe code your own alternative than to do a quick internet search to check if an alternative already exists.
urigan hour ago
For a Postman-like experience, I prefer Bruno: https://github.com/usebruno/bruno (not affiliated)
- CatMustardan hour ago
  Never used milkman so can't say if it's better, but +1 for Bruno.
  1. Very similar UX to postman (just minus the bullshit), so a very easy transition.
  2. It's FOSS*
  3. Most importantly of all, it has a cute dog logo.
  * oof, just saw this on another comment: https://royathan.com/blog/the-api-client-hunt/
  - Kinranyan hour ago
    The Hurl file format seems good, any new FOSS replacements should probably build on top
zabij2 hours ago
- I got sick of all those electron-based applications - I created a JavaFx-based workbench
Oh boi
- asdfsa322 hours ago
  Modern JavaFX isn't your grandparents JavaFX, in fact, modern Java isn't your grandpa's Java.
  - thunfischtoastan hour ago
    So I'm my own grandpa? Whats sorcery is this?
    an hour ago
    undefined
hobo1235 minutes ago
By the time I decided I should maybe try postman, I was absolutely turned off that it wants you to setup an account (for what?).
Went with Insomnia instead (which IIRC also wants an account now?) and now just some text-mode VSCode http client.
gosen2 hours ago
The UI looks a bit outdated, it gives me vibes of some old software from 2000s somehow (probably because of the Java). And it would be really helpful to clearly state benefits of using Milkman instead of Postman right on the home page (e.g. performance benchmarks, UX, extendability, etc.). I see that it has some users and 1.3k stars so there're definitely some cool things in Milkman, probably you could just present them better
- dkdbejwi383an hour ago
  Both the application UI and website are giving open source option from 2008
- kjmran hour ago
  It looks like a windows app running on macOS.
upmostlyan hour ago
Are API testing UIs really relevant anymore? I haven't manually tested an API for almost two years, and my APIs are SO much better. This kind of GUI is going to die over the next 5 years.
Postman should be seriously worried.
- Mashimoan hour ago
  > Are API testing UIs really relevant anymore?
  We have a postman collection mainly for testers to manually verify certain aspect of a otherwise fairly unit and end-to-end test covered API.
  - mkesper20 minutes ago
    Export to curl?
- rs_rs_rs_rs_rsan hour ago
  I'm thinking the same thing, I haven't have a need for a tool like Postman in a long time, prompting is enough at this point. I wonder what features others use from Postman that an agent can't do quickly.
  - ihavesomeexampl39 minutes ago
    Quickly eye-balling onprem responses, skipping over UIs and just eyeballing data in general is really useful. Curl can do it but with a couple headers it becomes messy, also RPCs, websockets, etc. It’s just convenient to have a single place where you can eyeball all comms.
- vr46an hour ago
  You're not wrong - I bought a Bruno "Golden Edition" for $9 two years ago pre-release... and... I just don't use it. I'm not even sure why I keep it around, at 524.5 MB
  ...and... it's gone
  - upmostlyan hour ago
    That's an interesting point. I wonder if over the next X years consumers will free up ALOT of disk space by just using agents and not needing to download and install desktop software.
    Full disclosure, I'm building a desktop app called DB Pro [1] which is a modern desktop database client.
    We're still doing well, and selling a lot, but we're having to think about what the next 2/3/4/5 years look like...
    [1] https://dbpro.app
    Muromec17 minutes ago
    You will own nothing and be happy they said
Jackson98Toman hour ago
Have you ever heard about Bruno?
- x3roan hour ago
  Came here to say this. While not perfect, Bruno is certainly the best tool in this category that I have used :)
sumedhan hour ago
Looking at such ugly UI breaks my heart :(
jplunien3 hours ago
Why?
https://github.com/postmanlabs/postman-app-support/issues/14... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50354960
Offirmo2 hours ago
What is better than the existing, established alternatives https://www.usebruno.com/ and https://insomnia.rest/ ?
- orng2 hours ago
  Not that I necessarily recommend yaak but this post explains why Bruno and Insomnia are not to be trusted: https://royathan.com/blog/the-api-client-hunt/
  - EspadaV92 hours ago
    I switched to Yaak, initially compiled it myself but now paying for it. I've not had any issues with it, does what I need and keeps out of the way. Simple yaml files in Git is also nice. I would recommend giving it a spin. I think there is a trial, and you can build it yourself, with a bit of configuring.
- kind_of_serious32 minutes ago
  I would stay off Insomnia. A few versions ago, they practically took my local configuration ransom so they could force me to create a cloud account. Bruno is (still) not there, but the maintainers are slowly heading that way.
- asdfsa322 hours ago
  Insomnia has been around for a while but just like this post from a new account, there is a lot of push for bruno, which is usually a redflag. Never trust things that are "preached" for free.
- prmoustachean hour ago
  what is wrong with curl and httpie (I mean the open source cli one, no idea what the desktop one does)?
  - hoherd7 minutes ago
    I know this is tongue-in-cheek, but every time somebody mentions Postman or Bruno, I think of https://justuse.org/curl because so much of is is true.
- hector84an hour ago
  if you use VS Code, there are a lot of alternatives:
  [0]: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=humao.re... - rest client storing config locally
  [1]: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Christia...
  [2]: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=prawel.r... - same as [0], but with GUI
  [3]: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=slverma....
  etc.
- pelagicAustral2 hours ago
  I think Insomnia and Bruno are both non-native JS apps, I think the moat here is that "this" is not "that".
shaaaade22 minutes ago
I wish the milkman would deliver my milk... In the morning...
- fbnlsr21 minutes ago
  You have so many machines Richard
herpderperator2 hours ago
The author appears to be suggesting that a key difference between Bruno and Insomnia is that Milkman not written in JavaScript/Electron, but rather JavaFx (i.e., Java) and thus is faster.
manveerc2 hours ago
What’s next garbageman?
Jokes aside, why is it better?
- aorth2 hours ago
  I think that it was posted in regards to the recent news, see: Postman silently auto-installs AI plugins and attempts to share all API data.
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50354960
- robofanatican hour ago
  Spiderman?
- brunoarueira22 minutes ago
  [flagged]
77341282 hours ago
Your GUI screenshots are squished on mobile. Stretched vertically.
akshit-bansal11an hour ago
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OhNoNotAgain_99an hour ago
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