Best Free API Testing & Development Tools

Test and document your APIs without paying. These free-tier API clients and testing platforms give you professional-grade tools — from REST and GraphQL testing to mock servers and automated test suites.

20 tools · Updated March 2026

$10,000 credits

Algolia

$10K in credits for startups

☁️ SaaSStartups

Step 1: Apply at algolia.com/startups

$1,000+ credits

Anthropic API Credits

API credits for AI startups

🤖 AIStartups

Step 1: Apply through a partner accelerator program

$588/year

BrowserStack

Free Automate plan for 1 year via GitHub Education

🛠 DevStudents

Step 1: Sign up via GitHub Student Developer Pack

$120/year

Codecov

Free code coverage for public & private repos

🛠 DevStudentsOpen Source

Step 1: Go to codecov.io for education

Startup pricing

DeepL Pro

Discounted translation API for startups

🤖 AIStartups

Step 1: Visit deepl.com/pro

$2,000+ credits

Google Cloud AI

AI/ML credits via Google Cloud programs

🤖 AIStartupsStudents

Step 1: Apply for Google for Startups Cloud Program

$100+/year discount

Hack The Box

Student labs for hands-on cybersecurity training

📚 LearningStudents

Step 1: Go to hackthebox.com/hacker/student

$180/year

LambdaTest

Free 1-year Live plan for cross-browser testing

🛠 DevStudents

Step 1: Sign up via GitHub Student Developer Pack

$40/year discount

LeetCode

Student discount on LeetCode Premium

📚 LearningStudents

Step 1: Go to leetcode.com/student

$420/year

Mailgun

12 months free with 20,000 emails/month via GitHub Education

🛠 DevStudents

Step 1: Go to mailgun.com/github-students

$2,500+ credits

OpenAI Startup Program

API credits and support for AI startups

🤖 AIStartups

Step 1: Apply at openai.com/startups

$200/year

Perplexity Pro

1 year free Perplexity Pro for students

🤖 AIStudents

Step 1: Go to perplexity.ai/hub/student-discount

$144/year

Postman

Free Basic plan for students

🛠 DevStudents

Step 1: Get GitHub Student Developer Pack

Free via GitHub Pack

Requestly

Requestly is an open-source tool for developers to intercept, modify, and mock HTTP requests and responses to build, tes

🛠 DevStudents

Step 1: Visit https://education.github.com/pack/offers

$50K credits

Segment

Free Startup plan for early companies

☁️ SaaSStartups

Step 1: Apply at segment.com/startups

$108/year

Simple Analytics

Free privacy-first analytics for 1 year

☁️ SaaSStudents

Step 1: Go to simpleanalytics.com/students

Free via GitHub Pack

Testmail

Get unlimited email addresses and mailboxes for automating email tests with our powerful APIs.

🛠 DevStudents

Step 1: Visit https://education.github.com/pack/offers

$700/year

Travis CI

Unlimited free CI/CD for open source projects

🛠 DevOpen Source

Step 1: Sign up with your GitHub account

$60/year discount

TryHackMe

Student plan for hands-on cybersecurity labs

📚 LearningStudents

Step 1: Go to tryhackme.com/r/student-discount

Startup credits

Twilio

Startup credits for communications APIs

☁️ SaaSStartups

Step 1: Apply through a Twilio startup partner

FAQ

Is Postman free for students?

Postman has a generous free tier with unlimited API calls, collections, and environments. Students and open source teams can get additional collaboration features through GitHub Education.

What is the best free API testing tool?

Postman for full-featured API development and team collaboration. Hoppscotch is a free, open-source browser alternative. Thunder Client is a lightweight VS Code extension for quick API testing.

Can I run API tests in CI/CD for free?

Yes — Postman's Newman CLI and Hoppscotch can run in GitHub Actions (free for public repos). This lets you automate API regression tests on every commit.