Free mock APIs compared

Honest comparisons with the other free mock APIs, including what each of them does better. Most of the disappointment with tools in this space comes from a tool being asked to do a job it was never for, so each page starts with what the other one is actually built to do.

The free options fall into three groups. Fixed public datasets — JSONPlaceholder, reqres — hand you a body to render and quietly discard your writes. Protocol reflectors — httpbin, Postman Echo — tell you exactly what your client sent but have no domain behind them, so there is nothing to conflict with. Configurable mock servers — Mockoon, WireMock, Beeceptor, Prism — let you declare the responses yourself, which is ideal for reproducing one specific contract and useless for discovering how your client copes with rules you did not write.

This playground is a fourth thing: a simulated API with per-caller state and constraints that push back. You do not configure the responses, which is the point — a seat that is already taken, a version that moved under you and a rate limit you actually exceeded are failures with a cause, and those are the ones worth rehearsing before production supplies them.

• A JSONPlaceholder alternative that keeps what you write — JSONPlaceholder fakes its writes. If you need a POST that a later GET can find, that is the difference.
• An httpbin alternative with resources, not just reflections — httpbin shows you the request. This shows you an API. They answer different questions.
• A reqres alternative with more than users and a login — reqres is a clean, tiny user API with fake auth. The gap is everything past the happy path.
• Free mock APIs compared: which one for which job — Six free options, what each is genuinely for, and how to tell which one your problem needs.

API testing glossary · Testing techniques · All 39 mock REST APIs