Milkman – The Better Alternative to Postman (milkman.dev)
48 points by jplunien 3 hours ago
urig 2 hours ago
For a Postman-like experience, I prefer Bruno: https://github.com/usebruno/bruno (not affiliated)
CatMustard 2 hours 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/
Kinrany 2 hours ago
The Hurl file format seems good, any new FOSS replacements should probably build on top
zabij 2 hours ago
- I got sick of all those electron-based applications - I created a JavaFx-based workbench
Oh boi
asdfsa32 2 hours ago
Modern JavaFX isn't your grandparents JavaFX, in fact, modern Java isn't your grandpa's Java.
thunfischtoast 2 hours ago
So I'm my own grandpa? Whats sorcery is this?
asdfsa32 16 minutes ago
biinjo an hour 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.
nilamo 27 minutes ago
Magnificent. One step closer to self sufficient community ships drifting through the system, meeting up with other ships once a month or less.
bleuarff 37 minutes ago
What a wonderful usage of resources.
ehosca a few seconds ago
when will it run on AmigaOS?
gosen 2 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The UI looks a bit outdated, it gives me vibes of some old software from 2000s somehow (probably because of the Java).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
dkdbejwi383 an hour ago
Both the application UI and website are giving open source option from 2008
kjmr 2 hours ago
It looks like a windows app running on macOS.
splittydev 15 minutes ago
When I saw the UI, my first thought was "is that written in Java"? And indeed, it is. Kinda funny that it's so easy to spot that language based on its horrible default UI skins alone.
upmostly 2 hours 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.
Mashimo an 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.
mkesper an hour ago
Export to curl?
Mashimo 35 minutes ago
rs_rs_rs_rs_rs 2 hours 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.
ihavesomeexampl an hour 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.
vr46 2 hours 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
upmostly 2 hours 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...
ethbr1 42 minutes ago
Muromec an hour ago
sumedh 2 hours ago
Looking at such ugly UI breaks my heart :(
Jackson98Tom 2 hours ago
Have you ever heard about Bruno?
x3ro 2 hours ago
Came here to say this. While not perfect, Bruno is certainly the best tool in this category that I have used :)
ivanjermakov 34 minutes ago
> New features regularly. There are more and more plugins/features coming.
Why all software needs to constantly evolve and grow with features? This is how you end up with what Postman has become.
hobo123 an hour 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.
Offirmo 3 hours ago
What is better than the existing, established alternatives https://www.usebruno.com/ and https://insomnia.rest/ ?
orng 2 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/
EspadaV9 2 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_serious an hour 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.
asdfsa32 2 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.
prmoustache 2 hours ago
what is wrong with curl and httpie (I mean the open source cli one, no idea what the desktop one does)?
hoherd an hour 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.
hector84 2 hours 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.
pelagicAustral 2 hours ago
I think Insomnia and Bruno are both non-native JS apps, I think the moat here is that "this" is not "that".
herpderperator 2 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.
shaaaade an hour ago
I wish the milkman would deliver my milk... In the morning...
fbnlsr an hour ago
You have so many machines Richard
manveerc 2 hours ago
What’s next garbageman?
Jokes aside, why is it better?
aorth 2 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.
robofanatic 2 hours ago
Spiderman?
7734128 2 hours ago
Your GUI screenshots are squished on mobile. Stretched vertically.
dankobgd 42 minutes ago
i hate this more than electron
elAhmo 43 minutes ago
Yet another Postman alternative...