Discover Hoppscotch: A Lightweight Open‑Source API Tool for Fast Testing

Hoppscotch Overview

Hoppscotch is an open‑source API testing tool with a clean UI, currently over 70k stars on GitHub.

Key features include:

Lightweight design with a minimal UI.

Fast response, real‑time request and response.

Support for common HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, custom).

Multiple themes and colors (light, dark, black).

Various authentication methods (Basic, Bearer Token, OAuth 2.0).

Additional protocols such as WebSocket, SSE, MQTT, GraphQL.

Installation is straightforward: download from the official website, which provides binaries for major OSes and a CLI.

Hoppscotch supports internationalization; you can switch the language to Chinese via Settings → Language, and customize the theme via Settings → Theme.

Usage with the Mall Project

We demonstrate using Hoppscotch to test the APIs of the mall e‑commerce project built with SpringBoot 3 + Vue and a 2024 micro‑service architecture deployed with Docker and Kubernetes.

Project links:

Boot project: https://github.com/macrozheng/mall

Cloud project: https://github.com/macrozheng/mall-swarm

Video tutorials: https://www.macrozheng.com/video/

Steps:

Start the mall project and open its Swagger UI (http://localhost:8080/swagger-ui/), then import the OpenAPI definition into Hoppscotch via REST panel → Import → From OpenAPI → From URL.

After import, the collection shows the endpoints.

Test the login endpoint, save the returned token.

When accessing a protected endpoint without a token, Hoppscotch returns “Not logged in”. Add a token variable in Environment, reference it in the Authorization header, and the request succeeds.

Conclusion

Hoppscotch is a simple, fast, and login‑free alternative to Postman, suitable for developers who need a lightweight API testing tool.

Project Repository

GitHub: https://github.com/hoppscotch/hoppscotch (11 K stars).