Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

MockServer VS DocSpring

Compare MockServer VS DocSpring and see what are their differences

MockServer logo MockServer

Easy mocking of any system you integrate with via HTTP or HTTPS.

DocSpring logo DocSpring

PDF filling API that makes it easy to fill out PDF forms and convert HTML to PDFs
  • MockServer Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-03-13
  • DocSpring PDF Template Editor
    PDF Template Editor //
    2025-02-26
  • DocSpring HTML Template Preview
    HTML Template Preview //
    2025-02-26
  • DocSpring HTML Template Editor
    HTML Template Editor //
    2025-02-26
  • DocSpring Auto-generated Web Form
    Auto-generated Web Form //
    2025-02-26
  • DocSpring E-Signatures
    E-Signatures //
    2025-02-26
  • DocSpring View Submissions
    View Submissions //
    2025-02-26
  • DocSpring View API Request Logs
    View API Request Logs //
    2025-02-26
  • DocSpring Postman Collection
    Postman Collection //
    2025-02-26

We provide a PDF filling and generation API:

  • Upload your PDF to our visual template editor to set up form fields and data types
  • Post JSON to fill out existing PDF forms with data
  • Generate editable PDF forms, or overlay static data on top of fields
  • Create HTML/CSS templates with Liquid fields, then post JSON to generate PDFs
  • Use our merge API to combine multiple PDFs into a single document

PDF generation doesn't need to be complicated or take weeks of engineering time. Use our battle-tested service to start filling out PDFs in minutes.

MockServer

Pricing URL
-
$ Details
Release Date
-

DocSpring

$ Details
freemium $49.0 / Monthly (Starter - 50 PDFs / mo)
Release Date
2017 October
Startup details
Country
United States
State
Delaware
City
Newark
Founder(s)
Nathan Broadbent
Employees
1 - 9

MockServer features and specs

  • Flexibility
    MockServer provides extensive support for HTTP and HTTPS as well as customizable responses, which allows developers to simulate various scenarios and behaviors in a flexible manner.
  • Scriptable Expectations
    You can define expectations using Java, JavaScript, JSON, and YAML, enabling you to control responses in a programmatic way for more complex testing scenarios.
  • Ease of Integration
    MockServer can be easily integrated with various build tools and CI/CD pipelines, which streamlines the testing process and makes it more efficient.
  • Extensive Documentation
    MockServer comes with comprehensive documentation that includes usage examples, configuration guides, and API references, which helps in decreasing the learning curve.
  • Support for Unit and Integration Testing
    The tool supports both unit and integration testing, making it versatile for testing different levels of a system in isolation.

Possible disadvantages of MockServer

  • Performance Overhead
    Running MockServer can introduce performance overhead, especially in resource-constrained environments, which may affect the speed of the tests.
  • Complex Configuration
    While powerful, the configuration can become complex, particularly for more elaborate mock scenarios, leading to a steeper learning curve for newcomers.
  • Dependency Management
    When used in a Java environment, managing dependencies can become cumbersome, particularly if there are version conflicts with other libraries in the project.
  • Requires Java Runtime
    MockServer requires a Java Runtime Environment, which can be a limitation if your development environment or CI/CD pipeline does not support Java.
  • Limited Community Support
    While it has good official documentation, the community support around MockServer is not as extensive as some other tools, which may limit the availability of third-party plugins and extensions.

DocSpring features and specs

  • Automated PDF Generation
    DocSpring allows users to automate the generation of PDFs by filling out templates with data. This can significantly reduce the time and effort needed to create documents.
  • API Integration
    DocSpring offers a robust API, which allows developers to integrate PDF generation into their own applications easily, enhancing productivity and workflow automation.
  • Flexible Templates
    The platform supports flexible and customizable templates, enabling businesses to maintain brand consistency while meeting specific document formatting requirements.
  • Secure Data Handling
    DocSpring is SOC 2 Type II compliant. We ensure data security through encryption and secure storage options, making it suitable for handling sensitive information.
  • Ease of Use
    The user interface is designed to be intuitive, making it easy for businesses to create and manage PDF templates without requiring extensive technical knowledge.

Analysis of MockServer

Overall verdict

  • MockServer is generally well-regarded and recommended for its robust features and ease of use. It is particularly praised for being useful in testing scenarios and for providing reliable mock responses without requiring a running instance of the actual service.

Why this product is good

  • MockServer is considered good by many developers due to its flexibility and functionality in simulating APIs and microservices. It allows for detailed control over request/response manipulation, making it ideal for testing and development environments. Its support for both HTTP and HTTPS, as well as its ability to mock complex interactions, make it a versatile tool in a developer's toolkit.

Recommended for

  • Developers who need to simulate or test API interactions.
  • Teams working on microservices architecture requiring isolated testing environments.
  • QA engineers looking for reliable test doubles in automated test suites.
  • Projects that require testing under conditions where the actual services are unavailable or costly to use.

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to MockServer and DocSpring)
API Tools
100 100%
0% 0
PDF Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Developer Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Document Automation
0 0%
100% 100

Questions & Answers

As answered by people managing MockServer and DocSpring.

Which are the primary technologies used for building your product?

DocSpring's answer:

Ruby on Rails, React, AWS

What makes your product unique?

DocSpring's answer:

DocSpring is built specifically for developers who need reliable, secure PDF generation in production. We combine PDF form filling and HTML-to-PDF in a single API, with a visual template editor, typed fields, and validation to catch issues early. Our product has a lot of power features and is built to handle very advanced forms. Our infrastructure is SOC 2 Type II compliant, battle-tested, privacy focused, and optimized for high-volume workloads, so you can ship PDF features quickly and then stop thinking about them.

Why should a person choose your product over its competitors?

DocSpring's answer:

DocSpring is designed for teams who need a powerful tool with all the features you need for complex forms and business logic. DocSpring supports structured JSON, typed fields, and array iterations, and many other advanced features, so your templates stay aligned with your real data model. You get powerful validation, a visual editor, strong observability, and an API that fits into modern engineering workflows, so you spend less time fighting PDFs and more time shipping product.

How would you describe the primary audience of your product?

DocSpring's answer:

DocSpring is built for engineering and product teams who manage complex documents in production: things like financial applications, insurance forms, healthcare and legal documents, HR and payroll workflows, and government-style forms.

What's the story behind your product?

DocSpring's answer:

I used to work at a payroll company (Gusto). We had built a similar in-house tool for filling out tax forms. I then built the first version of DocSpring (formerly named FormAPI) while I was living in Thailand. I built it to automate the filling out of visa application and visa extension forms, but realized that it could also be used for tax forms, real estate contracts, and any other kind of fillable PDF form.

Who are some of the biggest customers of your product?

DocSpring's answer:

  • SaaS services serving customers in the real estate, insurance, finance, and legal industries, among many others.

User comments

Share your experience with using MockServer and DocSpring. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Social recommendations and mentions

DocSpring might be a bit more popular than MockServer. We know about 5 links to it since March 2021 and only 4 links to MockServer. 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.

MockServer mentions (4)

  • MockServer: Easy mocking of any system you integrate (HTTP or HTTPS)
    There are several strategies to solve this kind of challenge, but today we will see MockServer as a tool to resolve it. - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
  • Please recommend a good API Mocking tool
    The open-source examples are mockoon, mock-server.com, etc. Source: about 3 years ago
  • Testing with MockServer
    I've just found out MockServer and it looks awesome ๐Ÿคฉ so I wanted to check it out repeating the steps of my previous demo WireMock Testing which (as you can expect) uses WireMock, another fantastic tool to mock APIs. - Source: dev.to / about 4 years ago
  • How to unit test successful Oauth requests of 3rd party API's?
    I tend to use MockServer. With MockServer you can define inputs, so you can say that the request should look like this with that URL, etc etc. That way you can verify that the request looks okay. Source: over 4 years ago

DocSpring mentions (5)

  • Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (February 2025)
    I'm still working on DocSpring [1], originally launched on Hacker News in October 2017 under the name "FormAPI." It's a PDF generation API with a template editor UI for setting up fields on PDF forms. It makes it easy to turn complex tax and immigration forms into simple type-safe APIs with strong validations. I've been having a lot of fun with AI agents lately. Have tried a lot of them - Cline, Roo Code,... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Launch HN: Onedoc (YC W24) โ€“ A better way to create PDFs
    For programmatic filling of PDFs, have a look at DocSpring: https://docspring.com. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
  • So you want to modify the text of a PDF by hand
    Great post. I've spend a lot of time reading through the PDF specification over the last ~5 years while building DocSpring [1], and I still feel like I've barely scratched the surface. Qpdf is a great tool. One of my other favorites is RUPS [2], which really lets you dig into the structure of a PDF. [1] https://docspring.com [2] https://github.com/itext/i7j-rups. - Source: Hacker News / almost 3 years ago
  • Workflow for automating document creation from a "database"
    Hi /u/pepeday, Iโ€™m the founder of a software product that I built to solve this problem. The service is called DocSpring: https://docspring.com We provide a platform that you can use to set up PDF templates, and automatically generate PDFs by filling in those templates with data from your database. Please feel free to send me a message and Iโ€™d be happy to speak with you and help you figure out a solution. I can... Source: almost 5 years ago
  • How do you fill copies of the same PDF certificates with Excel data?
    - https://docspring.com/ (super advanced features, a bit bloated). Source: almost 5 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing MockServer and DocSpring, you can also consider the following products

Beeceptor - Unblock yourself from API dependencies, and build & integrate with APIs fast. Beeceptor helps you build a mock Rest API in a few seconds.

DocRaptor - As the only API powered by the Prince HTML-to-PDF engine, DocRaptor provides the best support for complex PDFs with powerful support for headers, page breaks, page numbers, flexbox, watermarks, accessible PDFs, and much more

Request inspector - Debug web hooks, http clients

Doczilla - Effortlessly create stunning PDFs and screenshots. Seamlessly store them in your own AWS or Google Cloud Storage bucket, putting the control and creativity right at your fingertips.

HttpMaster - HttpMaster is a professional software tool for testing and debugging HTTP applications, primarily aimed at REST API applications and web services.

wkhtmltopdf - wkhtmltopdf is an open source (LGPL) command line tools to render HTML into PDF and various image...