Postman which I thought worked locally on my computer, is down

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Reliance on Postman Cloud & Outage Frustration

  • Many commenters discovered that Postman won’t start or becomes unusable if it can’t reach its servers, likely due to the AWS outage.
  • Users who thought they had a “local” setup were surprised or angry that basic request-sending depends on cloud connectivity and login.
  • Some consider this unacceptable for a developer tool that needs to work against localhost or internal APIs under any network conditions.

Bloat, Enforced Online Use & “Enshittification”

  • Long‑time users say Postman evolved from a simple, fast local client into a bloated, cloud‑centric “platform” with heavy UI, mandatory accounts, and complex collaboration features they don’t need.
  • Several organizations have formally banned Postman once it became cloud‑dependent, especially for internal or sensitive APIs.
  • There’s a recurring pattern described: Postman good → gets funding/acquired → adds lock‑in and cloud dependence → users migrate away.

Telemetry, Secrets & Security Concerns

  • A linked article claims Postman logs secrets and environment variables as “telemetry”; commenters are alarmed about sensitive data leaving their machines.
  • The Postman founder replies that the post is misleading, points to settings for disabling history, keeping variables local, using a local vault, and secret‑scanning features, but does not detail exactly what telemetry is sent.
  • Some security/IT teams use these concerns to justify bans; others argue all cloud tools (e.g., GitHub) share similar risk.

Alternatives: GUI Tools, TUI, and Editor Integration

  • Popular GUI replacements mentioned: Bruno, Yaak, Insomnia/Insomnium, RapidAPI/Paw, Kreya, Restfox, Yaade, Voiden, chapar. Key selling points: offline‑only, local file formats (often git‑friendly), no telemetry, and simpler UIs.
  • Yaak’s creator (also creator of Insomnia) discusses an OSS + “good faith” commercial licensing model and emphasizes offline, telemetry‑free design; some are enthusiastic, others fear a repeat sale.
  • Many advocate ditching dedicated apps entirely:
    • CLI: curl, HTTPie, Hurl, custom bash/Python/Groovy scripts.
    • Editors/IDEs: .http/.rest files in JetBrains IDEs, VS Code REST Client, RubyMine HTTP client, etc., often versioned in git.

Broader Reflections on Funding & Regulation

  • Multiple comments blame VC funding and growth targets for pushing products toward lock‑in, telemetry, and seat‑based pricing.
  • Some call for regulation requiring local/offline modes and optional cloud features; others argue market choice and open‑source tools are sufficient.