Volt – Fast, Git-native API client written in Zig (Postman alternative)
Hey HN, I wanted to build something real in Zig, and I was annoyed that Postman needed an account and an internet connection just to send a GET request. So I figured I'd make something I would actually use. It kind of snowballed from there. 50,000+ lines later, it does requests, test assertions, collections, environments, CI/CD reports, import/export, and has a browser-based Web UI (`volt ui`). All in a single binary with zero external dependencies. Some numbers: - Binary size: ~4 MB (Postman: ~500 MB) - Startup: 42ms (Postman: 3-8 seconds) - RAM idle: ~5 MB (Postman: 300-800 MB) -…
What it does
In the maker’s words, at launch
Hey HN, I wanted to build something real in Zig, and I was annoyed that Postman needed an account and an internet connection just to send a GET request. So I figured I'd make something I would actually use. It kind of snowballed from there. 50,000+ lines later, it does requests, test assertions, collections, environments, CI/CD reports, import/export, and has a browser-based Web UI (`volt ui`). All in a single binary with zero external dependencies. Some numbers: - Binary size: ~4 MB (Postman: ~500 MB) - Startup: 42ms (Postman: 3-8 seconds) - RAM idle: ~5 MB (Postman: 300-800 MB) - Dependencies: 0 - Account required: No It uses plain-text .volt files that live in your git repo. Your API tests are just files, versioned with your code. For CI, you copy one binary and run `volt test`. No npm, no Docker, no runtime. Why Zig? Honestly, I wanted an excuse to write a lot of Zig. But the explicit allocators, comptime, and cross-compilation from one machine made it practical to ship Linux/macOS/Windows from a single codebase with no external packages. There's a CLI, a TUI with tabs and search, and a Web UI. It's not perfect but I use it daily and it hasn't crashed on me yet. Site: https://api-volt.com Repo: https://github.com/volt-api/volt Benchmarks: https://github.com/volt-api/volt/blob/main/BENCHMARKS.md Happy to answer questions about the Zig implementation, that's the part I'm most excited to talk about honestly.
Does the same job
all alternatives →- JAJig – a tool to define, compute and monitor metrics2021 · jigdev.com · ▲74
Hi HN, 8 months ago, I posted “Ask HN: I built it nobody came, what now?” and got a ton of (not very optimistic) feedback [1]. I took away 3 things: 1. The message wasn’t properly targeted 2. The onboarding experience was terrible. 3. Someone posted some advice to find leads which actually worked, yeah! So here we are. 8 months later. I unfortunately didn’t have a lot of time to put in the tool itself. But I improved the website, improved the onboarding, and got a paying customer who seems to really like the software. So here it is in its current form. Let me know what you think would make…
- ZBZigg.be – A link shortener that creates short speakable links2013 · zigg.be · ▲75
I created this a year or so ago but recently made updates and I thought people might like to know that it exists. I made this to easily send links or text to someone else verbally, like over the phone or over voice chat (which is what I made it for). The goal is to be able to tell the link to someone else without being ambiguous or needing to spell it out, so I grabbed the words off a Grade 5 level dictionary. I understand that the domain itself doesn’t qualify but I’m trying to get a better domain.
- IBI Built a UI to finetune LLMs x100 faster2024 · finetuna-ui.com · ▲7
After fine-tuning GPT for a personal project, I realized how tedious it is to write plain text in a massive JSON file. That's why I built this app for my own use, and I want to see if others could benefit from a tool like this as well ;)
- ASA Simple Load Testing CLI Built in Go2023 · github.com · ▲9
There are plenty of good tools for load testing such as JMeter, Minigun, and plenty more - but they all have their own set of options to learn. I built this one to support a simpler workflow where you just paste your curl request (or other cli command) after your `spam` config (literally just `spam -r 2 -- curl www.google.com). It's pretty barebones but I'm 100% going to use it in my day to day - figured I'd share it here if it helped anyone else!
- CCCI/CD in your terminal, zero YAMLMar 2026 · zippy.sh · ▲7
We're two engineers that got fed up with context switching. Why do we need to do a git push, open a browser tab, wait for some task to actually start, bite nails (or read HackerNews) for 10 minutes or more while dependencies are being installed for the 100th time and finally end up with an invalid YAML error. And for some reason this usually happens in the final stage of the pipeline leading up to the inevitable git commits "Fixed", "Fixed again", "Test", "Really fixed this time". We can do better. We set out to build Zippy. A CI/CD system that works from your terminal. No context…
- PRPrompt-refiner – Lightweight optimization for LLM inputs and RAGDec 2025 · github.com · ▲7
Hi HN, While building RAG agents, I noticed a lot of token budget was wasted on formatting overhead (HTML tags, JSON structure, whitespace). Existing solutions felt too heavy (often requiring torch/transformers), so I wrote this lightweight, zero-dependency library to solve it. It includes strategies for context packing, PII redaction, and tool output compression. Benchmarks show it can save ~15% of tokens with negligible latency overhead (<0.5ms). Happy to answer any questions!
More dev tools this month
the category →
Open-source GTM skills for technical founders
Dev tools · 29d ago · gtmcofounder.com
OpenTrailPaper is open-source bike computer firmware for the LilyGO T5S3 4.7" E-Paper PRO. It supports offline maps, GPX routes, FIT recording and Bluetooth sensors.
Dev tools · 1d ago · opentrailpaper.com
Launched alongside, March 2026
the whole month →
Switch from ChatGPT to Claude with import memory feature
AI · Mar 2026 · claude.com
