The Postman Exodus: Why Developers are Abandoning the Industry Standard

What Reddit actually says

Discussions across developer communities highlight a visceral frustration with what many call the 'enshittification' of the tool. Users report that the application has become a resource hog, frequently triggering high CPU usage and fan noise just to perform simple GET requests. A major breaking point for the community was the removal of the local-only 'Scratchpad' and the requirement to sign in to access basic features. This forced cloud sync is not just a performance issue but a security concern for developers working with sensitive internal APIs. Furthermore, the cost-to-value ratio has flipped; teams are finding it impossible to justify nearly $200 per year for employees who only need to test an endpoint a few times a month.

Who this affects

The primary victims are individual developers and QA engineers who require a 'quick and dirty' way to validate API responses without the overhead of a full workspace. Small startup engineering teams are also heavily impacted, as they often operate on lean budgets where every seat license is scrutinized. Additionally, security-conscious organizations are being pushed away by the mandatory cloud storage of request collections, which may contain sensitive metadata or authentication headers that should never leave the local environment.

Current workarounds and their limits

Many developers are reverting to CLI-based tools like curl, HTTPie, or hurl. While these are lightweight and fast, they lack the visual organization and easy sharing capabilities of a GUI. Others are adopting the '.http' file format within VS Code, which allows for version-controlled API requests but can be clunky for complex workflows. Emerging local-first clients like Bruno are gaining traction by offering a GUI that saves data directly to the user's filesystem, though they still lack some of the deep integration features (like advanced automated testing suites) that Postman spent years building.

Why this is worth solving

The intensity of this problem is high because it sits at the intersection of developer productivity and corporate security. The trend is moving sharply toward 'Local-first' and 'Git-centric' development workflows. There is a massive opportunity for tools that provide a premium GUI experience without the 'enterprise bloat' or forced cloud dependencies. Organizations have shown a willingness to pay for API tooling, but they are increasingly rejecting the per-seat model for users who only use the tool intermittently.