Developers want a lightweight API client without Postman's feature bloat
101 posts across 20 communities in the last 30 days; 24% from GitHub.
“Yeah I heard of people testing it and it is apparently way too bloated. Dockge just needs security fixes, no extra features. That was kinda its point. [re: Apparently Dockge is dead. How do I migrate to Arcane?]”
“Good points. Thankfully haven't run into anyone delaying or denying API access yet. The issue I've had on my latest app is assuming I needed someone's API to get the data I wanted but then with a bit of research and a free trial to run comparisons found I could build the same…”
“Im observing on the problem on automation workflow, especially automation for publishing across multiple platform. so how can i get users guys”
Developers are frustrated by the complexity, verbosity, and collaboration challenges inherent in modern API development workflows. Existing tools feel bloated, inflexible, or lack essential features, leading to workarounds and custom solutions to bridge the gap between frontend and backend. The pain is compounded by legacy systems and the need for manual synchronization across different technologies.
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“I would make the BFF client or workflow oriented, but avoid a separate endpoint for every literal page. The frontend should not need to fan out to several monolith calls for one screen, so let the BFF aggregate the data a view needs. Keep that…”
“You should use k6 for this, it's better suited for load testing async APIs. One thing to watch out for is making sure your polling loop doesn't get stuck on a slow job, which can skew your results. I've found that using a separate metric for end-to-end time, like job_time , helps to get a clearer picture of how the API is performing under load. In your k6 script, you can use something like const jobTime = new Trend('job_time', true); to track this metric. Just remember to adj”
oh nice, the custom storage API approach makes sense. keeping the core lightweight while allowing different storage backends seems like a solid way to handle this without adding unnecessary complexity. i'll check…
Haha, true. That's why it lacks a backend. You raised a good point: sharing could be simplified like what a mock API platform like mocky.io do, which doesn't require login and provides…
“k6 is the right tool here. Postman can send requests, but it will not give you useful concurrency or latency numbers. Your API also has two different loads, and they need separate measurements. The submit path is a normal HTTP test: how many enqueues per second before the API or Redis slows down. The end to end path is the one you actually care about: submit, poll status until done, and record the full time. In k6 that is one script: POST to /submit, take the job_id, loop on the status endpoint”
“Love that you're using an in-process test db with PGlite, setting up Docker just for CI is such a faff. The staggered cron approach is clever too, sidesteps those nasty timeout issues without needing a queue worker [re: Using a typed-answer decision model as a judge: 200-label gold set, per-criterion agreement]”
“Caveat: I work in Rust, and this is likely only true for compiled languages. I define the core data path, and let the compiler optimize around the bloat. I add an agents folder that holds the functional spec, and let the agent continually re-index and summarize context, history, and ADRs… as long as it works, has comprehensive unit, integration, regression, load, and soak tests, I’ve given up giving a shit. At this point it’s about building a good crew with well-defined roles and reusable workfl”
“ChatGPT ↔ Codex Bridge: A Bidirectional Workflow for Software Architecture and Development”
“Same. I needed a client for Windows with certain features like local tools and context management. I also didn't want to have external dependencies or huge downloads to get it to work. The latest tool is an agent/harness with basic functions that works pretty well. Nowhere near what Pi can do but it works great for the basics. While the core of my code is there, a lot of the features and bug squashing were done by Gemma and Qwen. Since I also like the concept of a web client that lets me run”
“zero deps in the root module is a flex, nice work [re: I ported the Vercel AI SDK to idiomatic Go — one API for 39 AI providers, zero dependencies]”
“Problem Freight Fate currently checks for updates through the GitHub API and downloads release assets from GitHub. GitHub can be slow or unavailable for players in some regions, particularly mainland China, which can prevent both update checks and downloads from completing. The updater currently has no setting for using a GitHub mirror. Proposed behavior Add an optional GitHub mirror setting under Settings Updates: A "Use GitHub mirror" toggle, disabled by default. A "GitHub mirror prefix" text”
“Replacing the stack costs a year and a migration, bolting claude onto the API costs a weekend, no mystery which one he picked [re: MCP vs Replacing Existing Tech]”
“Posible to add more of the llama outputs, etc? (i've add some myself. but other might like them too) Token and template routes POST /tokenize is missing upstream. A local patch adds it, plus /v1/tokenize, with with pieces. POST /detokenize is missing upstream. A local patch adds it, plus /v1/detokenize. POST /apply template is missing upstream. A local patch adds it, plus /v1/apply template, including response format schema text and input tokens. There is no llama.cpp compatible add special / BO”
“Yeah I heard of people testing it and it is apparently way too bloated. Dockge just needs security fixes, no extra features. That was kinda its point. [re: Apparently Dockge is dead. How do I migrate to Arcane?]”
“AI made it too easy for people to make something that kinda works for their exact use-case. [re: Postman was too much, so I built a lightweight API client for Obsidian]”
“That would also make no sense but I wouldn’t complain [re: Postman was too much, so I built a lightweight API client for Obsidian]”
“Nice! Next version with the API is about a week away hopefully [re: Threat-hunt your selfhosted logs in 10 minutes]”
“All developers out here. What's your backend solution of choice ? Do you still roll out your own ? What all features you want for a backend solution to consider it complete and willing to pay for it ? submitted by /u/Eye_NeO [link] [comments]”
“Web dev here, about ten years in. Postman has been my go-to for API testing forever. But it's gotten heavy. Sign-ins, workspaces, cloud everything. Way too much for "send a request, check the response." So I made CarbonWire. Runs inside Obsidian, small and fast, has what you actually need. Requests, environments, auth, curl paste, JSON viewer, history. Imports from Postman, Insomnia, Bruno and more. Collections are just YAML files in your vault. Full disclosure: used AI for some of”
CarbonWire: a lightweight API client inside Obsidian
“Is the code on Github? There are a few other solutions like this, Hermex for the hermes agent, various Opencode mobile apps that listen to opencode serve on a home server, I use the latter wirh great success. Yours has a cool interface but no opencode support (yet I hope) however being closed source is unacceptable in this day and age, especially dealing with LLMs. Cool idea tho! [re: Claude CoWork for Local LLMs that runs on your Phone]”
“Good points. Thankfully haven't run into anyone delaying or denying API access yet. The issue I've had on my latest app is assuming I needed someone's API to get the data I wanted but then with a bit of research and a free trial to run comparisons found I could build the same time for free and own it. Well not free, had to do a $5 upgrade on cloudflare. [re: What have you learned in building your own SaaS that surprised you?]”
“Interesting. I tried getting Payload setup a couple of times, but literally couldn't get it to work (ie. build properly) alongside Nextjs. WordPress is really easy for me. Don't even need to use an LLM for it. I wasn't referring to .org or .com. You can host it almost anywhere. [re: Monthly Getting Started / Web Dev Career Thread]”
“the native mcp support is what caught my eye, been messing with ai workflows and most tools still feel like they're from 2015 [re: Need testers for fast, lightweight e-signature tool with native API & MCP support for AI workflows]”
“Hi. Good job with rustman. It's a really nifty api client. I really like that it doesn't have any telemetry data collection. I've noticed that every time I start rustman v0.3.14 it connects to various hosts like avatars.githubusercontent.com and 140.82.121.5 (which appears to be a github service load balancer). From what I can tell you use this to generate the update to recent version header message. It would be nice if this is mentioned in the readme with the option for it to be turned off in t”
“Opensource doesn't need to catch up, it just needs to be useful. These are all tools, you don't need to own a private jet. It will be nice, but you can live a good life if you owned a bicycle, motorcycle, car, motorhome, boat or even a propeller plane, you are living great. [re: How can open-source models ever catch up? (random shower thoughts)]”
“Im observing on the problem on automation workflow, especially automation for publishing across multiple platform. so how can i get users guys submitted by /u/Sharp-Wheel-7906 [link] [comments]”
“There are 3rd party clients. The backend (Vaultwarden) and the API is doing the heavy lifting. Writing a client is the easy part. [re: Bitwarden announces Dual License (Published version update in app stores - #41 by grb - Notices - Bitwarden Community Forums)]”
“I've known about Zod, a JavaScript/TypeScript schema validation library, for a while, but I underestimated the size of its ecosystem. After using it for some form validation in React, I thought I'd see how well it integrated with Express. Sure enough, there were several middleware libraries for Zod + Express, so I decided to give one a try. I went with express-zod-safe because it fit my existing setup with very little effort. Boom, that let me remove roughly 150 lines of custom validatio”
“Not really, the point of Navidrome isn't to be only a backend... Otherwize the main dev wouldn't working right now on a new improved webUI. But considering how OP has described his issue, Navidrome just isn't for him as there is no way to skip the "tagging correctly my music" step. [re: Any more modern and sleek alternatives to Navidrome out there? Want to host my own "Spotify" on my NAS.]”
“Yes it is! The live demo runs entirely on its source code as it is. Just inspect your browser requests [re: Just released srl, a modern buildless SPA framework based on web components and signals]”
“thanks for the answer i thought this approach a fad following jev release but maybe i've written it off too quickly without looking deeper into it [re: H2O-Lightning-4B: Apache-2.0 4B Decision model, official #1 open model on JevBench (above Jev)]”
“It brings about another point, I'm assuming this project is closed source too? It's just not how software is done anymore. [re: Rich mongodb client app in]”
“Hello, I am making a flash loan arbitrage bot on JITO. I wrote it on python and planning to rewrite on Rust. So the main question - what are you guys using for gRPC streams on solana and how much do you pay monthly? I just started with Triton, but it doesn’t stream fast enough for my bot. Appreciate for any help, thank you. submitted by /u/Revolutionary-Art583 [link] [comments]”
“Hi @pinpong, thanks for the library! I'm evaluating it as the API layer for homebridge my gekko and ran into a few issues that currently block adoption. I'm happy to send PRs for any of these if you're open to it. 1. axios pinned to 1.5.1 (security) package.json pins "axios": "1.5.1" . npm audit flags 32 advisories for that range, several of them high severity (e.g. GHSA jr5f v2jv 69x6 SSRF/credential leakage, GHSA 4hjh wcwx xvwj DoS). Because it is an exact pin, consumers can't pick up fixes wi”
“All logic is Client Side, there is no any API [re: I went from building JWT and Base64 tools to building a full media tools website with AI]”
Reproduction: 31 net 404 per backend/ in temper issue repros, checked against ffba652a . Its README says how to build the CLI and run a case. NetRequest.send() does four different things when…
“Hey everyone, Most mobile LLM setups for iOS suffer from two issues: Web UIs in mobile Safari tend to drop streaming the second your screen locks or you switch apps, with zero access to native iOS APIs. Most App Store clients push aggressive $15/month subscriptions and route your private prompts through their own cloud proxies. I built Eron as a clean, native iOS companion specifically for people running their own local hardware (Ollama, vLLM, LM Studio) or using their own API keys (BYOK). Techn”
“We had apps served from a single statefull server without any issues. It was much simpler to build them in the pre SPA world. Both (statefull and server side HTML) are still viable and simple solution for a wide range of apps where stateless SPA is chosen by default.”
“My first sentence is: "I do not use React". I have to install React and load 500kb to the bundle just to render my email templates. Why react when string do trick?”
“I actually prefer server sessions still (stored in redis). On the front end with JWTs it is a nightmare handling refreshes along with multiple tabs etc. Cookies and server sessions just work and it is still what big banks use so is proven tech which simplifies a lot of things.”
“Problem or Motivation Expression Lab already includes an HTTP service for operations using the active WordPress instance's network stack, but a dedicated modal for constructing that syntax could be very helpful for those still getting familiar with the DSL. Proposed Solution A modal with a UI for constructing HTTP requests. The modal will not execute them directly; it will simply generate code ready to be copied or inserted into the active editor. Additional Context N/A.”
“Stateless REST is popular mainly because any server can handle any request, which makes horizontal scaling, load balancing, and recovery much simpler. The cost is that every request has to carry enough context like auth tokens, identifiers, and versioning, and you lose easy server-side session state. It is not a universal rule: stateless application servers often sit in front of stateful databases and caches, and that mix is usually the practical answer.”
“If you have several servers you dont need to worry what each of them remembers about this user. Name kinda oversells it.”
“We just push the state problem around and call it a win like yeah the server stays thin but now every request carries around this chunky token and half your app logic lives in middleware that has to unpack it every single time. and god help you if you need real time features, then you're bolting on websockets and suddenly stateless goes out the window anyway”
“Since you said these are logs retrieved as a whole, keeping the original JSON can be reasonable. I’d keep a log ID and timestamp beside the payload, return only summaries in the list view, and fetch the full JSON when someone opens an entry. How big are the payloads, and how long do you need to retain them?”
“As a developer working at home on a single GPU i am building and experimenting a lot not only with coding agents but also with apps that use generative APIs. The flood of models, engines, and different APIs makes it hard to always get it right in every app and tool and to keep it up-to-date. I needed a gateway that i could target in all my apps while also being able to use it with clients that only support official upstream APIs from Anthropic and OpenAI. So i build a gateway for myself and over”
“I think Bun is still all the rage in some areas. For us the fact that it makes it easy to work with compliance, means it's often what we pick in place of Node when we work with typescript. Being able to build an API without using anything but the Bun runtime, the Microsoft Azure and our own internal Node packages makes the NIS2 compliance much less of a burden than if we'd work with Node.That being said. I don't think anyone in my team considers us a "Bun" team in regards to Typescript, all our”
“of course there is and there is also discord you can talk with the people that maintain the home assistant addon!”
“Haha, hard to argue with that! Rails set the standard early. The goal here is to bring a bit of that same out-of-the-box DX over to Node for teams sticking with JS/TS.”
“Hey everyone, Most boilerplates today seem to fall into two extremes: commercial templates bloated with tools you don't need, or quick "vibe-coded" starters that lack proper testing, deployment setups, and real documentation. I'm planning to build a modular open-source boilerplate with an emphasis on code quality, testing, deployment pipelines, and docs from day one. The Stack Backend: Node.js + Express + ORM Tooling & Testing: Vite + Vitest Frontend (Later Phase): Lightwei”
“Prerequisites [x] I am running the latest code. Mention the version if possible as well. [x] I carefully followed the README.md. [x] I searched using keywords relevant to my issue to make sure that I am creating a new issue that is not already open (or closed). [x] I reviewed the Discussions, and have a new and useful enhancement to share. Feature Description I'd like to discuss extracting the server's inference implementation into a reusable native core. The goal is to have llama server , the l”
“I think your confusion comes from conflating APIs with frontend work. APIs are part of the backend and sometimes frontends make calls to them.”
“This got to me: > For a certain type of developer, building things yourself is just more funThe platform APIs were terrible. React wasn't "more fun"... it just made it possible to do things with the platform that were extremely difficult and cumbersome to get working reliably with platform APIs alone.To me, web components were an incredible idea poorly implemented. Most of the minimal adoption happened on top of frameworks like Lit that wrapped WCs to try to make the dev experience tolerable.In”
“The point of shadcn is you can pull in a component and modify it any way you want. It's always going to be bare bones at the start. Something like MUI locks you into a layout and style that's coupled with the API, and you need to rewrite big chunks of your app if you want to add your own branding.For me the best middle ground is Headless UI or Bits for Svelte, unstyled and composable but you don't need to vendor code into your repo like shadcn.”
“For one thing, I just genuinely think WebComponents are a badly designed API that is weird and hard to use (how many people are using WebComponents without at least Lit, if not something much bigger?), and React is a relatively well-designed library that isn't really that bloated. There's not really much of a point in trying to argue since this is inherently subjective and people with different values are going to irreconcilably disagree. But, if you don't respect that some people hold this posi”