HttpForge: An Open-Source, Privacy-First Alternative to Postman
If you've ever opened Postman just to send one GET request and waited for it to load six tabs, a sync spinner, and a login prompt — you already know why tools like HttpForge exist. HttpForge is a modern, open-source API
If you've ever opened Postman just to send one GET request and waited for it to
load six tabs, a sync spinner, and a login prompt — you already know why tools
like HttpForge exist.
HttpForge is a modern, open-source API client built for developers who want
to design, test, and ship API requests without the bloat, forced cloud sync, or
telemetry that's crept into a lot of the "big" API clients over the years.
Why HttpForge?
A few things stood out to me:
- Privacy first — your credentials and API keys are encrypted locally on your device. Nothing gets shipped to a third-party server behind the scenes.
- Open source — the full codebase is on GitHub. Inspect it, fork it, contribute to it.
- Free forever — no paywalled "basic" tier games.
- Two ways to use it — a native Windows desktop app, or a VS Code extension if you'd rather stay inside your editor.
- Protocol support — REST, GraphQL, Webhooks, OpenAPI, and OAuth 2.0 flows are all supported out of the box.
Where you can run it
Desktop (Windows)
Download the .exe installer straight from GitHub Releases for the full
native experience with offline support and local credential encryption.
VS Code
Prefer to stay in your editor? Install the extension from the VS Code
Marketplace and send/preview requests without alt-tabbing.
What's coming next
HttpForge is upfront about what's shipped vs. what's on the roadmap, which I
appreciated:
- 🔜 Team collaboration — shared collections & synced environments (planned)
- 🔜 Cross-device sync — pick up a collection on another machine (coming soon)
- 🔜 Enterprise edition — audit logging, org-wide policies for larger teams (future release)
So today it's squarely a solo/small-team local API dev tool — if you need
team sync right now, keep that in mind. But the roadmap is public, so you can
track progress yourself.
Try it
If you try it, I'd genuinely love feedback — issues, feature requests, and PRs
are all welcome on GitHub. It's early days for the project, and community
input shapes the roadmap directly.
Disclosure: I'm affiliated with HttpForge. 👋``
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