Backend developers can test APIs and validate API responses through one of the many popular tools available, such as Postman, Apigee, SoapUI, and Swagger.

However, none of these as well as many others have attempted to revolutionize API testing through an easy-to-use mobile application that provides everything a backend developer needs to test and validate APIs, and publish and share APIs docs.

Let’s now see how to test RESTful APIs with an API Tester Mobile App, and what such an app can offer to you.

What is API Tester?

The first thing that comes to mind when thinking about API testing is that it is generally performed through a desktop or Web-based application. This makes it impossible to experiment with new ways of testing APIs in a mobile-friendly way. Luckily, there is an API Tester.

API Tester is an innovative mobile API testing application packed with many features for testing REST, SOAP, XML, JSON RPC, HTTP, HTTPS, WebSocket, and GraphQL APIs.

Using API Tester to Test CRUD RESTful APIs

Let's now explore the functionality offered by the API Tester app by testing some CRUD APIs developed in Express/Node.js and using Sequelize as the ORM.

First, you have to download API Tester and install it. You can download API Tester here:

• API Tester on the App Store;
• API Tester on the Google Play Store.

Many applications require a very cumbersome initial setup. This is not the case with API Tester. As soon as the app is installed, you will find all the features and options ready to be explored directly on the home screen. This makes the app interface really user-friendly and easy to use.

API Tester provides access to the “Create New Request” function. This function allows you to set up any API request. The application supports a full range of HTTP requests, including GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, VIEW, PATCH, OPTIONS, HEAD, COPY, PURGE, LINK, UNLINK, PROPFIND, LOCK, UNLOCK, and others.

Along with support for creating a new API request via the application, you can also try the “Import API collection” option. This allows you to import a collection of APIs from cURL, OpenAPI, Swagger, Postman, etc. Such a feature makes the set-up incredibly fast.

In my case, I imported all the GET, VIEW, POST, PUT, and DELETE requests I wanted to test directly from the ApiTester.TestCollection.json file I exported from one of my Postman projects, as shown below.

The API collection was successfully imported in no time, and API requests were displayed on the home screen with appropriate labels to specify the type of API request along with the API name and URL.

Selecting one of the API requests opens the details screen that allows you to update the URL, change query parameters, update API request details in the body, add or update values in the headers, enter authorization details, and an option to enable cookie settings. The settings of an API request also allow you to enable subsequent redirects and change the timeout period of the request.

Once you have checked all the details of the API request, you are ready to test and validate the response against the API request. All you have to do is hit the “Play” button in the upper right corner.

Having a way to quickly see the API response is critical for a backend developer in testing. In API Tester, simply press the “Response” button at the bottom of the screen to access the “Response” view. Here, you can explore the response obtained from the API request under test. As you can see in the image below, it is therefore very easy to switch back and forth between the “Request” and “Response” views.

One of the most interesting features of API Tester is the option to run all requests at once. This is essential for bulk testing. Thus, in addition to the single API request testing system seen above, API Tester also allows the user to test all API requests in the collection and check their response.

In other words, the developers of API Tester have given the user full support for running all API requests simultaneously. After using this feature, it will be possible to view the response status for all API requests on the main screen. This includes the status code, response time, and packet size.

Et voilà! You just learned everything you need to know to start testing APIs with API Tester.

Conclusion

There are several tools for testing API requests, but not many allow you to test APIs directly on your smartphone. API Tester is one of them. In detail, API Tester is an advanced, fully-featured, and easy-to-use mobile API testing application. Here, you learned what API Tester is, what it offers, and how to use it to test some CRUD APIs.

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