Hello HTTP

This is a cross-platform HTTP client desktop application for testing HTTP and REST APIs, WebSocket, GraphQL (including subscriptions) and gRPC endpoints. This is an alternative to Postman, Insomnia REST, etc.

This was made because of the decision these software made to go cloud and some of their imperfects.

Though this was built to address my daily needs, hope this could also help solving many of your problems! There is no plan to go a shared cloud, but it might be possible at a later stage to go online under clouds managed by users themselves, for example, users' Dropbox, users' S3, or users' Git repository. That is a bit far at this moment.

Status

macOS - Stable since v1.2.0
Windows - Stable since v1.4.1
Linux - Stable since v1.4.3

As major bugs are often created, automatic tests are targeted to be introduced in v1.6, to cover all supported types of HTTP calls.

Meanwhile, filing bug reports are much appreciated. It would help addressing issues quickly. Normally, critical bugs are fixed and released within 3 days.

Features

Watch the images and videos on the website. All the below can be skipped.

Data

Only you own your data - no mandatory online registration or request collection sharing
Automatic local regular backup - no more frustrations due to misclicking delete buttons and mistakes
- configurable backup retention period (default 15 days)
- backup at every launch and every 6 hours while the application is running
- you can make it online by e.g. mounting the backup directory to Dropbox or writing rsync scripts
Data freedom - your data is not locked to one software
- Import from
  - Insomnia
  - Postman
- Export to
  - Insomnia
  - Postman
  - (make feature requests for more destinations)
Selective exports

Requests and Projects

Firing HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2 requests
- with HTTP methods:
  - GET
  - POST
  - PUT
  - PATCH
  - DELETE
  - OPTIONS
  - HEAD
  - any other custom defined
- with request body varieties:
  - Form URL-encoded
  - Multipart Form with file upload
  - JSON
  - Raw String
  - Binary File
  - None
- with query parameters and headers
Connecting and sending payloads to WebSocket and gRPC endpoints
GraphQL queries, mutations and subscriptions
Request management with infinite nested folders
Different kinds of requests can coexist in the same folder
Multiple examples (request templates) with 1-level inheritance for each request - handle different scenario of the same API in the same request entry
Multiple payload examples for WebSocket requests
Multiple subprojects per project, designed for multiple services use
Multiple environments (no inheritance) per subproject, in which each one has
- Environment variables that can be embedded anywhere in the request (type ${{variable-name}})
- SSL configuration
  - Additional trusted CA certificates
  - Option to disable system CA certificates
  - Client certificate
  - Option to disable SSL Verification
- HTTP protocol preference
Functions that can be resolved anywhere in the request:
- UUID (type $((uuid)))
- Current date-time ISO-8601 string (type $((now.iso8601)))
- Current timestamp (type $((now.epochMills)) or $((now.epochSeconds)))
Executing custom safe script to mutate a Request before firing it
Copying as verbose cURL commands
Copying as verbose grpcurl commands
Copying as PowerShell Invoke-WebRequest command (for Windows pwsh.exe)

Response

Post flight actions
- update environment variables according to a request field (JSON path) or header
Transport I/O timeline view
- DNS lookup, connection and SSL events
- Raw HTTP/1.1 messages
- HTTP/2 decoded frames with push promises
Message streaming from WebSocket communications
Message streaming from GraphQL subscriptions
Message streaming from gRPC communications
Persistence per request example
Searching in response body
Collapsable JSON response body
Filtering JSON response body by JSON path
Automatic gzip / deflate decompression
Connection security indicator (Unencrypted / Unverified TLS / Verified One-way TLS / Verified mTLS)
Certificates in use

Appearance and Interactions

Dark and light theme
Syntax highlighting for JSON and GraphQL
Confirmation is made before executing any delete action
Handy buttons for copying requests, responses or transport logs to clipboard

Others

Best effort to make executables portable. Installation is not mandatory.

Executables are not signed by verified developers

Yes. I have no budget to obtain a developer license to sign the application. There are some ways to launch unverified applications for each OS. If you are concerned about security, you may grab the source code and build an executable on your own, or make a sponsorship if you admire Hello HTTP.

To build an executable, grab the code, make sure there is a JDK 17+ and git installed, and run:

./gradlew createDistributable packageDistributionForCurrentOS

The build will be available at $projectDir/build/compose/binaries/main/app.

Persistence

All data are saved in a single content root directory. In Hello HTTP, open setting, scroll down and click "Open Backup Directory", then go to one level upper. This is the content root directory.

Clearing this directory would reset the application.

Performance

Honestly, Hello HTTP is not yet performance-oriented. It is not another web app. It relies on JVM, so it demands a significant amount of memory (about 0.5 GB). But, it still outperforms many web apps. It performs very well on a Windows laptop with 8 GB RAM without a noticeable performance degrade of other applications.

Planned

Following features are on the TODO list (not in order). Feel free to raise feature requests or express your desired priorities in the issue tracker.

Binary response view
Binary request editor
Overriding default headers
Example-level variables
Checking for version updates
Establish release builds (minified and without debug logs and symbols)

Development

Hello HTTP heavily relies on Jetpack Compose Multiplatform. There are quite a number of components built from scratch. Please file a request if you would like them to become a reusable library.

This project can be edited by any code editor that supports Kotlin 1.8, though IntelliJ IDEA is recommended.

sunny-chung / hello-http