Detailed comparison

ApiArk vs Postman

Everything Postman does, without the bloat, the cloud, or the $19/month.

RAM Usage

~50MB

ApiArk

vs

300-800MB

Postman

16x less

Startup Time

<2s

ApiArk

vs

10-30s

Postman

15x faster

Download Size

~20MB

ApiArk

vs

200MB+

Postman

10x smaller

Team Price

$0

ApiArk

vs

$19/user/mo

Postman

Free forever

Feature-by-feature comparison

FeatureWinnerApiArkPostman
Account Required
Works Offline
Data StorageLocal filesystem (YAML)Cloud (proprietary)
Open SourceMIT License
REST
GraphQL
gRPC
WebSocket
SSE
MQTT
Mock ServersLocal (unlimited)Cloud only (limited)
MonitoringLocal (unlimited)Cloud only (limited)
Collection Runner25 runs/mo free
CLI ToolNewman
Plugin SystemJS + WASM
Git-Friendly
Import/ExportPostman, Bruno, Insomnia, OpenAPI, HAR, cURLLimited
Proxy Capture
Code Generation
FrameworkTauri v2 (Rust)Electron

Why developers are switching

Postman was great. Then it got bloated, started requiring logins, leaked 30,000 workspaces, and priced out individual developers.

Forced accounts

Since 2023, Postman requires a login to use the app. No account, no access. ApiArk has zero login requirement -- never has, never will.

30,000 workspaces leaked

In December 2024, over 30,000 Postman workspaces were found publicly accessible, exposing API keys, tokens, and secrets. ApiArk stores everything locally on your filesystem.

Resource hog

Postman uses 300-800MB RAM at baseline, with reported spikes up to 15-18GB. Startup takes 10-30 seconds. ApiArk uses ~50MB RAM and starts in under 2 seconds.

Vendor lock-in

Postman uses a proprietary data format tied to their cloud. ApiArk stores collections as plain YAML files on your filesystem -- open them with any text editor, version them with Git.

Switch in 60 seconds

Moving from Postman to ApiArk takes three steps.

1

Export from Postman

Open Postman, select your collection, click Export, choose Collection v2.1 JSON.

2

Import into ApiArk

Open ApiArk, press Ctrl+I or click Import, select the exported JSON file.

3

Done

Your collections, environments, headers, auth, and scripts are converted to YAML. Start working.

Ready to leave the bloat behind?

No login. No cloud. No bloat. Download ApiArk and import your Postman collections in under a minute.