Alternatives

Products that do what RestForge does

Your APIs. Your machine. Nobody else's business.

1. 1RO
   Restfox – Open source lightweight alternative to Postman▲758

   Last time I posted this it didn't garner much interest. There have been lots of improvements and fixes since the last release. Quick list of features: - Workspaces - Tabs - Nested Folders - Lots of context menus - Response history - Plugins - Runs fully in the browser and runs offline if necessary - Chrome and Firefox extension to bypass CORS restrictions - Desktop builds for all platforms - GraphQL support - Import collections exported from Postman and Insomnia - Simple user friendly interface I built this because I love Insomnia but wanted a portable version that I could run in the…

   2022 · restfox.dev

2. 2
   InsForge▲622

   Give agents everything they need to ship fullstack apps

   Mar 2026 · insforge.dev

3. 3
   Postman▲182

   Postman is a powerful HTTP client to test REST API

   2014

4. 4
   Shorten.REST▲221

   A URL shortener API you can depend on

   2020

5. 5
   NativeRest▲136

   Native REST API client for Windows

   2023

6. 6
   HttpForge▲3

   Ppen-source, privacy-first API client

   Jul 2026 · httpforge.com

7. 7
   InsForge▲183

   The backend for AI-assisted Development

   Nov 2025 · insforge.dev

8. 8
   StaticBackend▲118

   Low code self-hosted backend API to build web apps

   2023

9. 9
   Hyperform▲185

   Host your websites, APIs and apps serverlessly

   2021

10. 10AA
    Apicat – A Lightweight Offline Postman Alternative▲13

    Apicat is the ultimate offline Postman alternative that stores your .http files locally. It’s Git-friendly, open-source, and highly compatible with Postman. Test APIs offline with this powerful free offline API client designed for developers who need a reliable local API testing tool.

    Oct 2025 · apicat.com

11. 11VA
    Voiden – a free, offline, Git-native API Client▲79

    Hey HN! Aldin here, a helping hand to Voiden (https://voiden.md) Voiden is a free, offline, Git-native API client. Your API definitions, docs, and tests all live together. It came out of years of frustration: cloud sync lock-in, paywalled basics, bloated UIs, and lag on even simple requests. So the team built the opposite: an offline tool with no login, no telemetry, no lock-in. Just markdown and hotkeys. It behaves like code: local files, git branches, no cloud nonsense. Terminal is built-in, so you can commit, diff, and push changes right from the app. Docs stay close to your…

    2025 · voiden.md

12. 12
    restdb.io▲131

    Simple online NoSQL database backend

    2016

13. 13
    GhostForge▲80

    Build and deploy local AI agents offline

    Oct 2025

14. 14
    RestHuman▲94

    Simple secure app for API management + testing for humans

    2019

15. 15
    BackAnt▲93

    Your browser-based Software Developer

    2025

16. 16IO
    InsForge – Open-source Heroku for coding agents▲62

    Hi HN, I'm Hang, cofounder of InsForge (YC P26). InsForge is an open-source Heroku for AI coding agents: a backend platform designed for coding agents to deploy, operate, and debug end-to-end. Open source under Apache 2.0 (https://github.com/InsForge/InsForge). Quick demo here (https://youtu.be/7Bax5qz0IfM). We started InsForge because we just wanted our Claude Code to handle all the backend / infra stuff for us, instead of us jumping between dashboards doing manual config, or copy paste logs and docs back to agents. We first tried creating a folder…

    May 2026 · github.com

17. 17RI
    Rest – Instant RESTful API on Any SQL Database▲26

    2023 · github.com

18. 18
    Echolon▲95

    Postman Alternative. Open source, git-native, zero login

    Feb 2026 · echolon.app

19. 19
    RESTful Menu▲114

    A beautiful RESTful client right on the menu bar.

    2018

20. 20
    Xplorer▲103

    A Secure, 100% Local API Client

    Nov 2025 · karatelabs.io

21. 21VA
    Voiden – an offline, Git-native API tool built around Markdown▲48

    Hi HN, We have open-sourced Voiden. Most API tools are built like platforms. They are heavy because they optimize for accounts, sync, and abstraction - not for simple, local API work. Voiden treats API tooling as files. It’s an offline-first, Git-native API tool built on Markdown, where specs, tests, and docs live together as executable Markdown in your repo. Git is the source of truth. No cloud. No syncing. No accounts. No telemetry.Just Markdown, Git, hotkeys, and your damn specs. Voiden is extensible via plugins (including gRPC and WSS). Repo:…

    Feb 2026 · github.com

22. 22LE
    Leptus – Erlang REST framework that runs on top of Cowboy web server▲73

    2018 · github.com

23. 23RA
    Resterm – A terminal-based REST/GraphQL and gRPC client▲29

    Oct 2025 · github.com

24. 24PA
    Postman and Insomnia Alternatives▲26

    2023 · github.com

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