ShellYard vs Postman

Postman for public APIs.
ShellYard for the ones behind a bastion.

If you're using Postman to test APIs and write the occasional internal integration test, you should switch. ShellYard does the same HTTP / GraphQL / WebSocket / SSE work in one window — alongside SSH with Tunnel via: ssh-bastion-prod on every request, a 6-engine database inspector, 40+ network tools, and a BYO-key AI assistant. No required account. No Cloud login. Keep Postman only if mock servers, Newman CLI, or API governance are load-bearing for your team.

Download free for macOS, Windows, Linux

Free forever · Postman v2.1 import · Tunnel-via built in

Postman · HTTP

GET

https://localhost:8443/v1/health

+ ssh -L 8443:api.lab.internal:443 bastion
(running in another terminal, has to stay up)

— — waiting on tunnel localhost:8443

# tunnel down → ECONNREFUSED
# tunnel up   → 200 OK
# laptop sleep → tunnel down

ShellYard · HTTP

GET

https://api.lab.internal/v1/health

Tunnel via ssh-bastion-prod

200 OK 84 ms · 128 B application/json

{
  "status": "ok",
  "version": "1.42.0",
  "uptime_seconds": 184221
}

Same network destination. One needs a side process; the other names it on the request.

The honest verdict

Most Postman users should switch.

If your daily Postman flow is "open a request, hit Send, read the response" — possibly with an environment variable, possibly with a Bearer token — you are not using the parts of Postman that justify the Cloud account. You're using an HTTP client. There are better ones, and they fit inside a workspace that already has your SSH session and your database query open.

Switch to ShellYard if

You use Postman to test APIs. That's the common case — and that's all of it.
Some of your APIs live behind a bastion, VPN, or private subnet (and you've built the ssh -L dance once too many).
You want SSH, HTTP, the SQL query, and the syslog tail in one window — not four apps.
You're tired of the required Postman account, the Cloud-by-default prompts, and the slow Electron shell.
You want an AI that reads the response and explains the 503 — without sending your traffic through a third party.

Keep Postman only if

Hosted mock servers are part of your dev/test flow today.
You run Newman in CI/CD pipelines that you'd have to rebuild.
Postman Monitors run scheduled health checks you depend on.
Your team's contract testing or API governance is built on Postman Cloud.

If none of these apply, the column on the left is for you.

Feature-by-feature

The HTTP-client surface you're used to, plus the tunnel-routing layer Postman doesn't have — and the places Postman still does it better.

ShellYard advantage Postman advantage Parity

Feature	Postman	ShellYard
REST (GET/POST/PUT/PATCH/DELETE/…)
GraphQL client + schema introspection
WebSocket
Server-Sent Events (SSE)
Body editor (raw / form / multipart / GraphQL / binary)
Environments + {{variable}} substitution
OAuth2 / Bearer / Basic / API-key auth presets
Collection-level auth inheritance
Postman v2.1 collection import	✓ (native)
Collection runner		✓ (Pro+)
Pre-request + test scripts
Response viewer (JSON pretty-print, timing)
SSH-tunnel routing per request		✓ Tunnel-via on the request, env, or collection
SSH / RDP / VNC / Serial / SSM in the same window
Local credential vault		✓ AES-256-GCM (Free), KMS-wrapped DynamoDB (Pro+)
AI on responses (BYO key)	Postbot (Postman-hosted)	✓ Magellan — Anthropic / OpenAI / Gemini / Ollama
Works without an account	— account required	✓ Guest mode, full toolkit
Multi-engine database inspector		✓ Postgres, MySQL, SQL Server, Redis, Mongo, SQLite
40+ network diagnostic tools		✓ MTR, packet capture, TLS, SNMP, DNS, syslog…
Mock servers
Hosted monitors / scheduled runs
Newman CLI (CI/CD pipelines)
Web app / browser access	✓ web + desktop	— desktop only
API design + OpenAPI authoring		— consume only
Public collection marketplace
Team collaboration on collections	✓ workspaces	✓ Shared Spaces (Team+)
Pricing	Free / $14 / $29 / contact	Free / $24 / $49 / $99 — annual prices, locked

Reflects publicly documented Postman capability at time of comparison.

Where Postman still wins

If these are load-bearing, keep Postman.

01

Mock servers

We don't have hosted mocks. Postman's mock servers stand up a fake endpoint in seconds.
02

Monitors / cron-scheduled runs

Postman runs your collection on a schedule from their cloud. We don't.
03

Newman CLI for CI/CD

No Newman-equivalent yet. If your GitHub Actions pipeline calls newman run, Postman is staying.
04

Collections marketplace

Postman's public API catalog + example library is enormous and built up over a decade.
05

API governance + contract testing

OpenAPI authoring, contract validation, governance rules — Postman's a publishing platform. ShellYard is a consumer.
06

Mobile collaboration

Postman has mobile clients. ShellYard is desktop-only — macOS, Windows, Linux.

Plenty of teams run both — Postman for the public APIs and CI/CD pipeline, ShellYard for everything that lives behind a bastion.

Migration in one Postman export

Your existing collections, with tunnel-routing on top.

1

Postman → Export Collection (v2.1).

Right-click any collection in Postman → Export → choose Collection v2.1. Save the JSON.
2

ShellYard → Import → Postman Collection (v2.1).

Folders, requests, auth presets, and {{variables}} all land intact. Environments come with them.
3

Open a request. Click the Tunnel-via pill. Pick your bastion's SSH session.

The URL keeps the real internal hostname. The request resolves DNS, TLS, and the body from the bastion's network. The choice persists on the request, the env, or the collection.

Before you install

The questions a Postman power-user asks.

Does Postman v2.1 import really work?

Yes — full collection import, including folders, requests, environments, auth presets, and {{variable}} substitution. Drop in the JSON; we normalize variable syntax to {{name}} so OpenAPI / Hoppscotch / Insomnia / Thunder / Bruno / cURL / HAR exports all land the same way. Open a request, click the Tunnel-via pill, pick your bastion — done.

What about mock servers, monitors, and Newman?

Honest answer: we don't have them. If hosted mocks, scheduled monitors, or Newman in your GitHub Actions pipeline are load-bearing for your workflow, keep Postman for that. Plenty of teams run both — Postman for public APIs and CI, ShellYard for the private-network requests Postman can't reach without an `ssh -L` ritual.

Cloud sync for collections — how does it work and how private is it?

Pro and above syncs collections, environment variables, requests, and folders to DynamoDB via AWS KMS envelope encryption — per-Space CMKs at Pro+, with cryptographic erasure at Team and Enterprise. To be clear: it is not zero-knowledge. We hold the KMS keys. If you need keys-on-your-side, run on Free (local-only, AES-256-GCM, never leaves the machine) or wait for the customer-managed-KMS path on Enterprise.

Team collaboration on collections?

Shared Spaces on Team and Enterprise — invite members with read / write / admin roles, share collections, environments, and SSH connections in the same boundary. Pro covers a single Shared Space with up to 2 guest seats (free) for solo consultants on a single client engagement.

GraphQL introspection?

Yes. The schema panel populates from introspection, autocompletes types and fields in the editor, and applies your collection-level auth headers to the introspection request. Introspection and queries both ride your Tunnel-via pick, so private GraphQL endpoints behind a bastion work the same as public ones.

Free-tier limits?

1 collection / 25 requests on Free — meant as an honest evaluation surface, not a permanent home. Pro ($24/mo annual) unlocks persistent unlimited collections, environments, the collection runner, all the import sources, and cloud sync. The full SSH / RDP / VNC / SSM stack, the credential vault, Magellan AI, and the 40+ network tools all run at Free.

Does ShellYard see my requests?

No. Requests go from your machine, through the SSH session you opened, to your internal API. There's no ShellYard server in the request path — no proxy, no cloud relay, no inspection layer. Your URLs, headers, bodies, and responses never transit our infrastructure. (If you're on Pro+ and have cloud sync on, your collection definitions are stored encrypted — but the actual request traffic is direct.)

Try the Tunnel-via dropdown on your next private-API request.

Install. Import a Postman v2.1 collection. Open the SSH connection you already use to reach the API. Click Tunnel via. Send the request. If it doesn't work the way this page promises, uninstall — no account required to try it.