Show HN: Ezy – open-source gRPC client, alternative to Postman and Insomnia | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Ezy – open-source gRPC client, alternative to Postman and Insomnia

github.com

155 pointsnotmedia28 comments

In this release I have concentrated on user experience:

- Full support of shortcuts - Reworked collections management - Notifications - Improved UX

gRPC clients I’ve worked with had drawbacks and didn’t fit my use-case in a way I was expecting, since I’ve started working with gRPC 3+ years ago.

Since then, I wanted a tool that fits any need in gRPC world. This is why I created ezy.

Compared to Insomnia and Postman, ezy offers better streams support, allows you to use Server-Side and Mutual TLS with custom TLS certificates, works with gRPC-Web and has a more slick UI/UX.

If you are looking for a gRPC/gRPC-Web client which fits your needs, give ezy a chance!

I’d love to hear your feedback and answer any questions regarding ezy.

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Looks promising. I have to say this is still really rough, though.

Some feedback after 5 minutes of testing:

* It doesn't remember your "environment". So if I call endpoint A and then click on endpoint B to try that, it forgets which environment is being targeted.

* Similarly, metadata is also specific to the request. If you use metadata for providing authorization headers, that means you have to enter the metadata separately every time you make a different request; there's no way to share metadata as an "environment".

* If you create a collection and click "Create", and it errors saying an imported proto resource wasn't found, the entire collection disappears.

* The app uses the proto schema to show a list of endpoints, but it doesn't know anything about the message and response schemas, and you can't browse the types? It seems tedious to have to manually enter the request as a JSON payload.

* Similarly, response is shown in JSON, rather than Proto data. So I can't see what the returned types actually are.

* The "Request" and "Metadata" editors are super laggy to the point of being unusable. It takes several seconds for what I type to appear in the editor, and my computer's CPU usage goes to 150% while it's sitting there doing nothing. Is there some kind of autocompletion that's supposed to kick in that's going into overdrive?

* Clicking on an endpoint adds another tab. Click around and you end up with dozens of tabs. Seems a bit pointless.

* No support for setting HTTP headers or seeing the returned headers.

Hi! Thank you for testing!

> It doesn't remember your "environment". So if I call endpoint A and then click on endpoint B to try that, it forgets which environment is being targeted. Similarly, metadata is also specific to the request. If you use metadata for providing authorization headers, that means you have to enter the metadata separately every time you make a different request; there's no way to share metadata as an "environment".

Yeah, I have this in plans for taking environment and Metadata from previous tab - https://github.com/getezy/ezy/issues/30

> If you create a collection and click "Create", and it errors saying an imported proto resource wasn't found, the entire collection disappears.

Ha, interesting case, you selected the file and then just delete it before clicking create :) I will think how to handle this.

> The app uses the proto schema to show a list of endpoints, but it doesn't know anything about the message and response schemas, and you can't browse the types? It seems tedious to have to manually enter the request as a JSON payload.

This is the great point, was already mentioned earlier, I have plans to add auto-mocking feature for request payloads and autocompletion in code editor this will fix this issue. Also I will think for option to show raw Protobuf definitions

> Similarly, response is shown in JSON, rather than Proto data. So I can't see what the returned types actually are.

Maybe you have an idea on how we can represent decoded message (which an object) and map it to Protobuf Message definition?

> The "Request" and "Metadata" editors are super laggy to the point of being unusable. It takes several seconds for what I type to appear in the editor, and my computer's CPU usage goes to 150% while it's sitting there doing nothing. Is there some kind of autocompletion that's supposed to kick in that's going into overdrive?

Interesting, this is the first feedback about app performance. Can you open an issue and put more details there? I need to know app version, your OS, how much tabs opened and how much are you typing. Will be helpfull, but I try to reproduce it anyway.

> Clicking on an endpoint adds another tab. Click around and you end up with dozens of tabs. Seems a bit pointless.

Sorry, I can't reproduce this bug. You said clicking around, where exactly I need to click?

> No support for setting HTTP headers or seeing the returned headers.

You can set it in your Metadata and this should work as expected.

> you selected the file and then just delete it before clicking create :)

No, I had a proto file which imported another proto file, which could not be found, because I had not added its path to the import path list. Seems like it would be a common enough issue.

> Maybe you have an idea on how we can represent decoded message (which an object) and map it to Protobuf Message definition?

Something like Grip, maybe: https://gripgrpc.dev/.

> Interesting, this is the first feedback about app performance.

Appears to be related to the number of tabs. If I have only one tab open, it's not particularly laggy.

> Sorry, I can't reproduce this bug. You said clicking around, where exactly I need to click?

Click on an endpoint. It always opens a new tab.

> No, I had a proto file which imported another proto file, which could not be found, because I had not added its path to the import path list. Seems like it would be a common enough issue.

Ah, this make sense. I agree that this could be a common issue while importing a protobuf. I will fix this in next release :)

> Something like Grip, maybe: https://gripgrpc.dev/. Got it, we have a related discussion here -https://github.com/getezy/ezy/discussions/29 I will think how to show it, thank you!

> Appears to be related to the number of tabs. If I have only one tab open, it's not particularly laggy.

The main problem here is persistance (saving all data on the disk), and this make performance problems. I have plans to rewrite this section to improve it.

> Click on an endpoint. It always opens a new tab.

I think I need to create a poll :) Some users saying that they want to open new tab by one click, others wants double click.

And here I really don't know whats the better way of UX should be.

I created the poll - https://github.com/getezy/ezy/discussions/35

When we were working on adding gRPC support to Step CI, I needed a client that I could use to test my mock APIs manually

BloomRPC looked ugly and outdated, Kreya would crash on my M1 mac and Insomnia didn’t have all the features I needed. Ezy was a new discovery and offered both great UX and features that were missing from other clients

When I’m working with gRPC APIs, Ezy is the client I reach out to!

Hi! Thank you, I'm happy to hear that you found ezy helpful for your needs!

Pretty happy with Paw (https://paw.cloud, macOs) also supports gRPC

You forgot to mention the best part, no Electron! Native macOS app

Interesting tool, never seen this before!

Tested it with common gRPC cases. Just some things why it's not good for gRPC:

  1. It doesn't support streams. 

  2. It doesn't support "include directories" option. 

  3. It doesn't support Server-Side/Mutual TLS with custom  
 certificates.

  4. When I entered URL like 0.0.0.0:4000 app freezes and won't work, so I can't send any request. 

  5. I think it support only gRPC-Web, because my URL 0.0.0.0:4000 converts to http://0.0.0.0:4000. If yes, it only covers gRPC-Web that is not fit all user needs.

1. Streams are coming next year.

2. Could you elaborate more about this?

3. Currently, Paw supports TLS with by entering grpcs://grpcb.in:9001. No custom certificates yet.

4. 5. It should not freeze. I'm gonna check this. Thanks.

Our gRPC is not final yet, but improvements are coming!

> 2. Could you elaborate more about this?

Include directories is an option which defines paths for your imports in protobuf files. In large projects it's commonly use case when you have directory of protobuf types that used in another files with service definitions for example.

> Our gRPC is not final yet, but improvements are coming!

You do the great project, I tested HTTP features and they looks good! I'm sure that you will improve gRPC experience soon. Thank you for your comment, I will subscribe for your updates!

I like that a lot of projects enters gRPC world - this promotes gRPC and making it easy to use.

Glad to see that this supports mTLS. Will have a look at this tool.

Does the TLS/mTLS settings allow you to override the host name of the server, so that I can connect to localhost even though the cert CN is example.com?

Is it able to import proto files to define endpoints automatically, and to fill in generated data for the types?

Hi! Great, feel free to return back with any feedback!

> Does the TLS/mTLS settings allow you to override the host name of the server, so that I can connect to localhost even though the cert CN is example.com?

Yes, in TLS settings you can override SSL target name for this cases.

> Is it able to import protobuf files to define endpoints automatically, and to fill in generated data for the types?

When you importing the protobuf files ezy parse them and generate to you collection of all existing services and methods. I have plans to add auto-mocking feature, which will generate prefilled values for the request payload, stay tuned!

Good. Postman is an example of very useful and good software turning into inconvenient bloatware.

Thank you! If you have any feedback feel free to share!

Best grpc client is to not use grpc. Better use json over http2 (and enable compression if needed).

Hey! I think it's really depends on your needs and expectations from protocol you choose.

gRPC is not a silver bullet, but it offers you structure via protobuf messages and automatically generated clients for most used languages. Not in all places in your architecture you need to use high-performance protocols. It's a trade-off and only you decide whats better in concrete section.

The problem which ezy solves - gRPC is popular, and yes, maybe we have faster protocols, but a lot of developers using it and this tool just help them to work with it.

gRPC has been a pain (customization of the generated clients, automation testing, even usual testing). I haven't heard of Ezy (used BloomRPC, insomnia, and another client, all of them were an incomplete solution). I will be sure to check Ezy next time I have to use gRPC.

Some of the features I couldnt find on the gRPC apps I tried were: 1) the ability to have complete information about the request and the response, and also I couldn't add headers to the grpc request. 2) the ability to automate (run the requests without a GUI), the way newman works for postman.

I just wish gRPC would not be used on any new projects and people would use more sensible solutions.

> the ability to have complete information about the request and the response

Can you describe what information you want to see?

> the ability to automate (run the requests without a GUI)

Yeah, this is my goal - I want to add tests support to ezy with ability to run them on CI/CD

>Can you describe what information you want to see?

Everything there could be (of course maybe in a separate expander). I needed the request/response headers, but maybe somebody could need something even more up the stack (ex. if the connexion was reused or a new one was created).

Also don't know if this is already implemented, but I think the option to generate a curl command for the request should be possible, since curl supports http2.

For automating gRPC tests you can use Step CI

Disclosure: I'm the author

https://docs.stepci.com/guides/testing-grpc.html

Anyone knows of web based HTTP client? Compatible with Postman Insomnia?

I've not used it, but have heard of Prestige (https://github.com/sharat87/prestige). It bills itself as "A text-based HTTP client in the browser. An interface-less Postman." I hope that helps!

Hey! Buy the way I have plans to support different protocols later such as HTTP, GraphQL, etc. :)

You may try https://hoppscotch.io/

You can try https://github.com/flawiddsouza/Restfox. It's a web based HTTP client based on Postman and Insomnia.

Disclaimer: I'm the maintainer for it.

Wow! You have an interesting project! I will try it!

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