Is Postman free for teams?

Postman's Free plan is oriented to individuals after the 2026 plan changes. Team collaboration for new customers is a paid Team plan at $19/user/month billed annually. Solo at $9/month annual is for a single paid user, not multi-writer team workspaces.

Which is cheaper for 5 developers sharing collections?

Usually Hoppscotch free or Organization. Five Organization seats at $6 is $30/user-month math versus Postman Team at $19/user/month annual ($95 for five). The gap widens if you only needed shared collections, not monitors or partner workspaces.

Can I import Postman collections into Hoppscotch?

Yes. Hoppscotch supports Postman import paths. Verify scripts, auth helpers, and environment variable references after import, because helper libraries are not identical. Plan a short regression pass on OAuth and chained requests.

Does Postman still offer Basic and Professional?

Not for new customers under the March 2026 plan structure of Free, Solo, Team, and Enterprise. Legacy customers may remain on Basic or Professional until migration. Always confirm the live Postman billing docs for your account.

Is Hoppscotch good enough for GraphQL?

Yes for common GraphQL workflows including schema-aware work in everyday development. Evaluate advanced enterprise needs, such as catalogue governance and partner distribution, separately when those are hard requirements.

Which is better for enterprises?

Postman Enterprise for governance and catalogue features. Hoppscotch self-host for control when your security team prefers OSS inside the perimeter and accepts more DIY process around roles and audit.

Yes. Web and desktop options cover Apple Silicon. Keep apps updated for Tahoe 26.x and re-test corporate proxies plus custom certificate authorities after major OS updates.

What about Bruno or Insomnia?

Valid alternatives outside this pair. Bruno suits git-friendly local collections. Insomnia is another lightweight client with design-first strengths and Kong ties. This page only decides Hoppscotch versus Postman.

Should I switch off Postman purely for price?

Only after inventorying monitors, public docs, and governance you would lose. Price alone is a weak migration reason if platform features are load-bearing. Many teams keep Postman for platform work and add Hoppscotch for local or self-hosted scratch work.

How do Postman AI credits affect cost?

Credits scale by plan (about 50 free, 400 Solo, 400 per user Team, 800 per user pooled Enterprise) with published overage pricing. Heavy agent-style usage can move monthly spend more than seat stickers alone, so model AI consumption when comparing to Hoppscotch.

When is self-hosted Hoppscotch the right compliance move?

When request bodies, tokens, or customer data must not traverse a vendor cloud, and your team can operate Docker or equivalent. Self-host removes the per-seat tax and keeps data residency under your control, at the cost of ops ownership Postman SaaS would otherwise carry.

Can Hoppscotch and Postman coexist on one Mac?

Yes. Many developers keep Postman for company system-of-record workspaces and Hoppscotch for personal scratch or self-hosted labs. Use separate secret stores and avoid copying production tokens into personal free-tier workspaces.

What changed for new Postman customers in March 2026?

New purchases follow Free, Solo ($9/month annual), Team ($19/user/month annual), and Enterprise ($49/user/month annual) instead of Basic/Professional naming. Free collaboration limits make Team the default paid path for multi-writer collection sharing.

Hoppscotch or Postman for a five-person startup?

Start with Hoppscotch free or Organization at $6/user/month annually unless you already depend on Postman monitors, partner workspaces or enterprise catalogue features. Five Postman Team seats at $19 each are a much larger monthly line item for the same basic shared-collection job.

How does Bruno compare to Hoppscotch and Postman?

Bruno is a git-friendly, local-first API client people add when the query becomes Hoppscotch vs Postman vs Bruno. It keeps collections near code and avoids multiplayer SaaS cost. Choose Bruno for local git workflows, Hoppscotch for free cloud collaboration or self-host, and Postman for enterprise platform features.

What is the real cost difference per month?

Using public annual list prices: Hoppscotch Organization is $6 per user per month. Postman Team is $19 per user per month. Postman Enterprise is $49 per user per month. Postman Solo is $9 per month for an individual. Free tiers exist on both sides but serve different collaboration limits. Re-check vendor pages before a procurement freeze.

Postman or Hoppscotch for GraphQL and modern APIs?

Both handle common REST and GraphQL developer workflows on Mac. Postman still leads when you need the surrounding platform (monitors, broader governance). Hoppscotch is enough for many GraphQL day-to-day client needs at lower cost. Validate your exact auth flows (OAuth, API keys, mTLS) in a spike before you standardise.

Should I self-host Hoppscotch or use the cloud free tier?

Use cloud free when data residency is not a concern and you want zero ops. Self-host when request data, environments or compliance rules require your network boundary. Organization cloud seats at $6/user/month annually are the middle path when you want vendor admin features without running Docker yourself.

Do Postman AI credits change the Hoppscotch comparison?

Yes for teams that lean on Postman AI features. Free plans include a small credit allotment; paid plans raise monthly credits and publish overage rates. If AI generation is central, model those credits in TCO. If you only send manual requests, credits barely matter and Hoppscotch's seat math dominates.

TL;DR

Hoppscotch vs Postman: Hoppscotch takes the value and self-host crown; Postman keeps the enterprise platform crown. Postman's 2026 Free/Solo/Team/Enterprise shift makes seat cost a sharper trade-off than older Basic/Professional pages suggested. There is still no universal winner, only an honest split by team size and governance need. Solo developers and privacy-first labs usually shortlist Hoppscotch first. Banks and multi-team API programmes usually shortlist Postman Enterprise first. Bruno or Insomnia can win niche local or lightweight workflows without ending this head-to-head. Write the decision down as a one-pager for your team: required workflows, seat math at 3/12 months, self-host yes/no, and a dual-run period. That document prevents a reverse migration six weeks later when someone rediscovers a monitor nobody listed. If you are still unsure after reading seat tables, run a two-sprint dual-run: keep production monitors on Postman while the team lives in Hoppscotch for new collections, then count broken workflows. That experiment costs less than a year of wrong seats.

PublishedJanuary 1, 2026•UpdatedAugust 10, 2026

Which is better: Hoppscotch or Postman?

Hoppscotch and Postman are both API tools on a Mac, so the pick depends on workflow. Pick Hoppscotch for free/cheap collaboration and self-host control; pick Postman when monitors, governance and platform depth justify Team or Enterprise seats. As of September 2026, both install with brew install --cask hoppscotch and brew install --cask postman.

Hoppscotch vs Postman

Which is the better API tools for Mac in 2026?

We compared Hoppscotch and Postman across 6 key factors including price, open-source status, and community adoption. Read our full breakdown below.

Hoppscotch

Open source API development ecosystem

FreeOpen Source

Postman

API platform for building and using APIs

Free

Visual Comparison

Hoppscotch

Postman

Our Verdict

Hoppscotch takes the value and self-host crown; Postman keeps the enterprise platform crown. Postman's 2026 Free/Solo/Team/Enterprise shift makes seat cost a sharper trade-off than older Basic/Professional pages suggested. There is still no universal winner, only an honest split by team size and governance need. Solo developers and privacy-first labs usually shortlist Hoppscotch first. Banks and multi-team API programmes usually shortlist Postman Enterprise first. Bruno or Insomnia can win niche local or lightweight workflows without ending this head-to-head. Write the decision down as a one-pager for your team: required workflows, seat math at 3/12 months, self-host yes/no, and a dual-run period. That document prevents a reverse migration six weeks later when someone rediscovers a monitor nobody listed. If you are still unsure after reading seat tables, run a two-sprint dual-run: keep production monitors on Postman while the team lives in Hoppscotch for new collections, then count broken workflows. That experiment costs less than a year of wrong seats.

Feature Comparison

Feature comparison between Hoppscotch and Postman
Feature	Hoppscotch	Postman
Price	Free	Free
Open Source	Yes	No
Replaces	Postman (paid plans)	—
Best for	api, testing, rest	api, testing, development
Install	brew install --cask hoppscotch	brew install --cask postman
Category	Developer Tools	Developer Tools

Quick Install

Hoppscotch

brew install --cask hoppscotch

Postman

brew install --cask postman

Learn More

Hoppscotch Details

Full review, features, and FAQs

Postman Details

Full review, features, and FAQs

In-Depth Overview

What is Hoppscotch?

Hoppscotch is an open-source API development platform with a fast web client (hoppscotch.io), desktop options, PWA install and first-class self-hosting. The free cloud plan advertises unlimited workspaces, collections, requests and runners with community support. Self-host remains $0 for the software; you pay only your own infrastructure. Cloud Organization is $6 per user per month billed annually and adds an admin dashboard, dedicated support and custom payment options. Teams pick it when Postman seat math hurts and when keeping request data on infrastructure they control matters more than Postman's monitor and partner ecosystem.

What is Postman?

Postman is the incumbent API platform: client, collections, specs, mock servers, monitors, flows, AI assists and enterprise governance. For new customers in 2026 the public ladder is Free ($0, individual-focused), Solo ($9/month billed annually), Team ($19/user/month annually) and Enterprise ($49/user/month annually). AI credits scale by plan (about 50 free, 400 Solo, 400 per user Team, 800 per user pooled on Enterprise) with pay-as-you-go overage rates published on Postman's pricing page. Postman wins when the client is only one slice of a larger API programme: shared catalogues, partner workspaces, audit requirements and hiring pipelines that already assume Postman fluency.

Detailed Feature Comparison

Core request building

Critical

HoppscotchExcellent

Fast REST and GraphQL client UX with environments, histories, and collections that feel snappy in browser or desktop. Request editing stays keyboard-friendly, and large collections lazy-load without the weight of a heavyweight local database for typical startup workspaces.

PostmanExcellent

Full-featured request builder with scripts, variables, and mature collection runner behaviour. Years of edge-case handling around auth helpers, pre-request scripts, and multi-step flows show up when teams automate more than ad-hoc GETs.

Verdict: Both handle daily API calls excellently.

Pricing and free tier

Critical

HoppscotchExcellent

Generous free cloud plus free self-host; Organization only $6/user/month annually for admin dashboard and dedicated support. Core request execution is not the paid gate.

PostmanFair

Free is individual-focused after 2026 changes; Team collaboration at $19/user/month annually adds up quickly for a five-person squad. Solo at $9/month annual covers a single power user who still wants paid AI credits and personal workspace features.

Verdict: Hoppscotch wins value decisively for most small teams.

Collaboration

High

HoppscotchGood

Shared workspaces on free/cloud; org admin on paid. Real-time collab is less of a corporate platform story than Postman, but small teams share collections without paying enterprise seat math.

PostmanExcellent

Team workspaces, roles, viewers, and partner workspaces designed for multi-team API programmes. This is where Postman justifies seats once more than a handful of people touch production collections.

Verdict: Postman remains collaboration platform leader.

Self-hosting and data control

High

HoppscotchExcellent

First-class self-host documentation and OSS deployment options for air-gapped or regulated environments. Data stays inside your perimeter when you run the stack yourself.

PostmanFair

Primarily cloud SaaS; enterprise deployment controls exist but not the same OSS self-host model. Organisations that must keep request bodies off vendor clouds usually evaluate Hoppscotch self-host or negotiate Postman enterprise controls rather than treating Free/Solo as the compliance path.

Verdict: Self-host advantage to Hoppscotch.

Automated testing and monitoring

High

HoppscotchGood

Runners and testing features cover common needs; monitoring depth trails Postman's mature monitors product. Teams that only need CI collection runs often pair hopp CLI with an external uptime tool.

PostmanExcellent

Collection runner, monitors, performance testing features, and reporting fit platform engineering teams that schedule checks and report API quality to stakeholders without building a separate stack.

Verdict: Postman wins ops-style API quality tooling.

AI assistance

Medium

HoppscotchFair

Lighter AI surface; focus remains on fast manual and scripted workflows. Power users who want generation helpers usually bring their own editor or agent rather than relying on bundled credits.

PostmanGood

Postman AI credits for agent-style assistance scaled by plan, with overage pricing published. Rough allotments run about 50 free, 400 Solo, 400 per user on Team, and 800 per user pooled on Enterprise, so heavy AI use belongs in cost models.

Verdict: Postman packages more AI credits into paid tiers.

Enterprise governance

High

HoppscotchFair

Organization admin helps, but deep RBAC, audit, and partner networks are Postman's home turf. Self-host teams invent process around Git and internal review rather than buying a catalogue product.

PostmanExcellent

Enterprise plan emphasises API catalogue, audit logs, advanced RBAC, private networks, and security add-ons. Regulated enterprises still shortlist Postman first when procurement asks for governance checkboxes.

Verdict: Regulated enterprises still shortlist Postman first.

Performance on Mac clients

Medium

HoppscotchExcellent

Lightweight web and desktop feel; low friction for quick calls. Idle resource use stays modest compared with feature-heavy Electron workspaces full of history and sync.

PostmanGood

Feature-rich desktop can feel heavier with large workspaces but remains workable on M-series hardware. Teams with huge shared histories notice RAM more than single-collection users do.

Verdict: Hoppscotch feels lighter day to day.

Who Should Choose Which?

1Solo indie developer on a MacBook

Hoppscotch

Free unlimited client features cover daily REST/GraphQL work without a seat tax.

2Five-person startup sharing collections

Hoppscotch

Organization at $6/user/month or free cloud collaboration undercuts Postman Team math.

3Bank API platform team

Postman

Enterprise governance, audit, partner workspaces and catalogue features justify higher seats.

4Team that wants collections in git PRs

Hoppscotch

Self-host Hoppscotch or evaluate Bruno; pure git-local Bruno may win if multiplayer cloud is unwanted.

5Org deep on Postman monitors and public docs

Postman

Migration cost of monitors and docs often exceeds seat savings for a year or more.

6Privacy-sensitive lab needing data residency

Hoppscotch

Self-host Hoppscotch keeps request data on your infrastructure; Postman Enterprise is the alternate compliance path.

Migration Guide

Postman → Hoppscotch

Export collections and environments, import into Hoppscotch, rebuild secrets in a vault, and re-create monitors or scheduled checks outside Postman if you still need them. Run both clients for one sprint so nobody loses a production smoke test.

Hoppscotch → Postman

Import collections into a Postman workspace on the correct paid plan for collaboration, map environments, and decide which monitors and mock servers become system-of-record. Train the team on Postman role permissions before inviting the whole company.

Pro Tips

Never commit production tokens. Prefer short-lived credentials. Document every public mock URL and docs site before decommissioning a workspace. On Apple Silicon Macs, re-test desktop clients after major macOS updates and proxy changes. Photograph or export every monitor schedule and public docs URL before disabling a Postman workspace. Name owners for each system-of-record collection so free-for-all edits do not recreate the chaos that made you switch tools.

Final Verdict

Overall Winner

Depends on use case

Hoppscotch 8.7/10 value

Score

Hoppscotch

Postman 8.7/10 platform

Score

Postman

Scores are Bundl.run editorial ratings out of 10 across 8 criteria (the feature comparison above), last reviewed August 2026.

Bottom Line: Pick Hoppscotch for free/cheap collaboration and self-host control; pick Postman when monitors, governance and platform depth justify Team or Enterprise seats.

Video Tutorials

How to test API in Postman? | What is API testing? #infysky #reactjs #laravel #razorpay #coding

Infy SKY - We Innovate Solutions • 109.9K views

The BEST API Client - Open-Source & Git-friendly (Bruno)

Better Stack • 36.0K views

Postman is DEAD. Meet the API Client Everyone’s Switching To

Piyush Garg • 97.3K views

Running Hoppscotch in Docker - Browser Based Open Source Alternative to Postman

i12bretro • 6.4K views

Frequently Asked Questions

Yes for core cloud usage and self-hosting as advertised on hoppscotch.com/pricing. Paid Organization seats add admin and support at $6/user/month billed annually. Request execution, protocol support, and exports are not the paid gate.

About the Author

Alex Chen

Senior Developer Tools Specialist

Code Editors & IDEsTerminal EmulatorsVersion Control Tools

12+ years in software development · Former senior engineer at tech startups

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Browse API tools apps, read our complete guide, or discover curated bundles.

Sources & References

Fact-Checked

Last verified: Aug 9, 2026

Key Verified Facts

Postman public 2026 plans include Free $0, Solo $9/month annual, Team $19/user/month annual and Enterprise $49/user/month annual.[cite-postman-pricing]
Hoppscotch Free is $0 forever for core advertised cloud features; Organization is $6 per user/month billed annually.[cite-hoppscotch-pricing]
Postman AI credits scale by plan (50 free, 400 Solo, 400/user Team, 800/user pooled Enterprise) with overage pricing published by Postman.[cite-postman-pricing, cite-postman-ai]
Hoppscotch can be self-hosted; free software self-host is positioned for individuals and small teams on the pricing page.[cite-hoppscotch-pricing, cite-hoppscotch-home]

1
Postman plans and pricing
Accessed Aug 9, 2026
2
About Postman plans
Accessed Aug 9, 2026
3
Hoppscotch pricing
Accessed Aug 9, 2026
4
Hoppscotch product
Accessed Aug 9, 2026
5
Hoppscotch web client
Accessed Aug 9, 2026
6
Postman vs Hoppscotch (vendor alternative page)
Accessed Aug 9, 2026
7
Postman AI credit usage
Accessed Aug 9, 2026

Research queries: Postman pricing Solo Team 2026; Hoppscotch Organization $6; Postman plan changes March 2026; Hoppscotch self-host

Related Technologies & Concepts

HoppscotchPostmanPostman Team planHoppscotch OrganizationSelf-hostingCollection RunnerAPI monitoringPostman AI credits

Hoppscotch

Postman

Visual Comparison

Hoppscotch

Postman

Our Verdict

Feature Comparison

Quick Install

Learn More

In-Depth Overview

What is Hoppscotch?

What is Postman?

Detailed Feature Comparison

Core request building

Pricing and free tier

Collaboration

Self-hosting and data control

Automated testing and monitoring

AI assistance

Enterprise governance

Performance on Mac clients

Who Should Choose Which?

1Solo indie developer on a MacBook

2Five-person startup sharing collections

3Bank API platform team

4Team that wants collections in git PRs

5Org deep on Postman monitors and public docs

6Privacy-sensitive lab needing data residency

Migration Guide

Postman → Hoppscotch

Hoppscotch → Postman

Pro Tips

Final Verdict

Depends on use case

Video Tutorials

How to test API in Postman? | What is API testing? #infysky #reactjs #laravel #razorpay #coding

The BEST API Client - Open-Source & Git-friendly (Bruno)

Postman is DEAD. Meet the API Client Everyone’s Switching To

Running Hoppscotch in Docker - Browser Based Open Source Alternative to Postman

Frequently Asked Questions

About the Author

Explore More on Bundl

Sources & References

Key Verified Facts

Related Technologies & Concepts

Related Topics

API Clients

Open Source Developer Tools

API Platform Engineering

Postman Alternatives