Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Insomnia REST VS Pusher Beams

Compare Insomnia REST VS Pusher Beams and see what are their differences

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Insomnia REST logo Insomnia REST

Design, debug, test, and mock APIs locally, on Git, or cloud. Build better APIs collaboratively for the most popular protocols with a dev‑friendly UI, built-in automation, and an extensible plugin ecosystem.

Pusher Beams logo Pusher Beams

Send push notifications programmatically at scale
  • Insomnia REST Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-05
  • Pusher Beams Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-21

Insomnia REST features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    Insomnia REST features a clean and intuitive user interface that makes it easy to create, send, and manage API requests without a steep learning curve.
  • Support for Multiple Protocols
    In addition to REST, Insomnia supports GraphQL and gRPC, making it versatile for developers working with different API protocols.
  • Environment Management
    Insomnia allows you to create and manage multiple environments, making it easier to switch between staging, development, and production settings.
  • Custom Plugins and Themes
    Insomnia supports custom plugins and themes, allowing users to extend its functionality and personalize the interface to suit their workflow.
  • Collaboration Features
    With Insomnia Teams, users can collaborate and share API requests, environments, and other resources, enhancing team productivity.
  • Cross-Platform Availability
    Insomnia is available on multiple platforms, including Windows, macOS, and Linux, providing flexibility for users on different operating systems.

Possible disadvantages of Insomnia REST

  • Resource Heavy
    Some users have reported that Insomnia can be resource-intensive, leading to potential performance issues on lower-end machines.
  • Limited Free Features
    While Insomnia offers a free tier, some of the more advanced features, such as team collaboration and sync capabilities, require a paid subscription.
  • Steeper Learning Curve for Advanced Features
    Although the basic functionalities are user-friendly, mastering the more advanced features might require a steeper learning curve.
  • Dependency on Electron
    Since Insomnia is built on Electron, it might consume more memory and disk space compared to native applications.
  • Complex Plugin System
    While the plugin system is powerful, it can be complex and challenging for users who are not familiar with JavaScript and Node.js.

Pusher Beams features and specs

  • Ease of Integration
    Pusher Beams provides simple and well-documented APIs and SDKs for various platforms, making it easy for developers to integrate push notifications into their applications quickly.
  • Cross-Platform Support
    Beams supports multiple platforms including iOS, Android, and web, allowing developers to manage push notifications for different environments through a single service.
  • Scalability
    Pusher Beams is built to handle large volumes of notifications efficiently, making it a suitable choice for applications with a growing or large user base.
  • Reliability
    The service uses robust infrastructure to ensure the delivery of notifications, even under heavy loads, which enhances the reliability of the communication.
  • Advanced Features
    Beams offers advanced features such as user segmentation and detailed analytics, aiding in the creation of targeted notification campaigns and performance tracking.

Possible disadvantages of Pusher Beams

  • Cost
    While Pusher Beams offers a free tier, the costs can increase significantly with scale, which may be a consideration for smaller projects or startups.
  • Dependency
    Using a third-party service like Pusher Beams means additional dependency on their infrastructure and uptime, which could be a risk if the service experiences downtime.
  • Limited Customization
    While the service offers many built-in features, there may be limitations when it comes to custom use cases or very specific requirements that fall outside the provided capabilities.
  • Data Privacy
    Using any external service to handle user data introduces potential privacy concerns, particularly if the application involves sensitive information that needs stringent privacy controls.
  • Notification Delivery Limits
    There can be limits on the number of push notifications that can be sent per month or per second, which might necessitate significant planning and optimization for high-traffic applications.

Analysis of Insomnia REST

Overall verdict

  • Insomnia REST is an excellent choice for developers who need a robust and intuitive tool for API development and testing. Its comprehensive features and ease of use make it a competitive option alongside other popular API clients.

Why this product is good

  • Insomnia REST is widely regarded as a powerful tool due to its user-friendly interface, extensive plugin ecosystem, and support for multiple authentication protocols. It allows users to easily build, debug, and test RESTful APIs with features like environment variables, code generation, and response validation. Moreover, its compatibility with GraphQL and gRPC makes it versatile for modern development needs.

Recommended for

  • API Developers
  • Software Testers
  • Backend Engineers
  • Technical Leads
  • Anyone involved in RESTful API development and testing

Analysis of Pusher Beams

Overall verdict

  • Pusher Beams is a strong choice for developers looking to implement push notifications with minimal hassle. It excels in ease of use, reliability, and scalability, making it particularly advantageous for applications requiring interactive and user-specific notifications.

Why this product is good

  • Pusher Beams is considered good because it provides a reliable and straightforward way to send push notifications to iOS and Android devices. It offers a simple API, integrates easily with existing applications, and ensures high delivery rates with real-time updates. The platform is favored for its ability to handle complex notification requirements, such as user segmentation and personalized messages, without the need for extensive setup or maintenance.

Recommended for

    Pusher Beams is recommended for developers and teams building mobile applications who need to send targeted push notifications. It's ideal for startups, small to medium-sized businesses, and enterprise-level applications that require effective communication with users through personalized, real-time notifications.

Insomnia REST videos

3 Reasons to use Insomnia REST Client in your Exploratory API Testing

More videos:

  • Tutorial - Insomnia REST Client Tutorial

Pusher Beams videos

No Pusher Beams videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

Add video

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Insomnia REST and Pusher Beams)
API Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Mobile Push Messaging
0 0%
100% 100
Developer Tools
91 91%
9% 9
Web Push Notifications
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Insomnia REST and Pusher Beams

Insomnia REST Reviews

Top 20 Open Source & Cloud Free Postman Alternatives (2024 Updated)
Product Introduction: Insomnia is a powerful open-source API client designed for simplicity and efficiency and works great as a postman alternative. It supports REST, GraphQL, and gRPC, making it versatile for various API types.
Source: medium.com
Best Postman Alternatives To Consider in 2025
It is a free, open-source platform that boasts a user-friendly interface and robust features like environment and collection management, code snippets, and test automation. Compared to Postman, Insomnia offers a lighter footprint and a more customizable workspace.
Postman Alternatives for API Testing and Monitoring
Insomnia is a user-friendly tool for API development and testing. Insomnia allows creating and sending HTTP and REST requests, like GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, and more. Users can view API responses, including status codes, headers, and body. This enables understanding how the application handles different response scenarios, for efficient debugging.
Top 10 HTTP Client and Web Debugging Proxy Tools (2023)
Insomnia REST is the best alternative for Postman. It has more than 350 open-source plugins, plus GraphQL built-in with multiple protocol support. Since GraphQL is an added value, you can fully automate the entire lifecycle of APIs, build and debug them efficiently and with ease.
15 Best Postman Alternatives for Automated API Testing [2022 Updated]
Insomnia by Kong enables you to deliver high-quality APIs through collaboration. This postman alternative also includes testing suites, which allow you to create functional tests and centralize APIs. With this platform’s streamlined API client, sending GraphQL, REST, and SOAP requests are simple. Defining variables such as authentication credentials allows you to manage...
Source: testsigma.com

Pusher Beams Reviews

We have no reviews of Pusher Beams yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Insomnia REST seems to be a lot more popular than Pusher Beams. While we know about 129 links to Insomnia REST, we've tracked only 3 mentions of Pusher Beams. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Insomnia REST mentions (129)

View more

Pusher Beams mentions (3)

  • How to enable HTTPS in Laravel Homestead
    I met this need because I am working on browser notifications for Inspector using Pusher/Beams. But Beams requires that the application be necessarily served over HTTPS. It is required also in the local development environment. - Source: dev.to / about 3 years ago
  • Push notifications from web app
    Lots of options, but Laravel already integrates with Pusher for websockets; https://pusher.com/beams is their push notification system, and it's fairly easy to add to Laravel. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Free for dev - list of software (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, etc.)
    Pusher.com — Free, unlimited push notifications for 2000 monthly active users. A single API for iOS and Android devices. - Source: dev.to / almost 4 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Insomnia REST and Pusher Beams, you can also consider the following products

Postman - The Collaboration Platform for API Development

OneSignal - Customer engagement platform used by over 1 million developers and marketers; the fastest and most reliable way to send mobile and web push notifications, in-app messages, emails, and SMS.

Hoppscotch - Open source API development ecosystem

Push Notification Preview - A simple tool for previewing push notification copy

RapidAPI for Mac - Paw is a REST client for Mac.

PushOwl - Re-engage website visitors with push notifications