APIteste

APIteste is a software framework and toolset for automated testing of application programming interfaces (APIs). It aims to simplify validation of API correctness, reliability and performance across REST, GraphQL, and other API protocols.

Origin and philosophy: The project began in the early 2020s as a community-driven effort to provide an approachable alternative to established API testing tools. Its design emphasizes readability, reproducibility, and integration with modern development workflows.

Features: Test case authoring in YAML or JSON, a built-in assertion library, data-driven testing with environment variables, support for common HTTP methods, request/response validation, and parameterization. It includes a mock server and API virtualization, can simulate latency and error conditions, and covers authentication flows such as OAuth and API keys. It offers CI/CD integrations, reports in HTML or JSON, and extensible plugins.

Architecture: Modular components include a test runner, a validator, and a reporting subsystem. It emphasizes language-agnostic operation via a command-line interface and provides adapters for popular languages like Python and JavaScript, enabling tests to join broader test suites.

Usage: Users create test suites describing endpoints, inputs, and expected outputs, then run tests locally or in CI. Results are published to dashboards and can trigger further actions, such as failed builds. It supports contract testing and can integrate with OpenAPI specifications to validate endpoint conformance.

Reception: APIteste has been adopted by individual developers and small teams for its simplicity and portability. Critics note a smaller ecosystem of plugins and fewer enterprise features compared with some commercial tools, though its open-source nature encourages community contributions.

See also: API testing, OpenAPI, REST, GraphQL, Postman, Insomnia, Swagger.