Happy Valley

GitHub vs Postman

GitHub and Postman are both developer tools tools aimed at developers and small businesses. GitHub costs less, from $4/mo versus $9/mo for Postman. Both have a free plan.

GitHub

Code hosting, CI/CD and AI coding platform owned by Microsoft

Postman

API platform for testing, mocking, documenting and sharing APIs

PricingFreemium · $4Freemium · $9
Starting price$4/mo$9/mo
Free planYesYes
Free trial30 days—
Built forDevelopers, Small businesses, EnterpriseDevelopers, Small businesses, Enterprise
Platformsweb, macos, windows, ios, androidweb, macos, windows, linux
CountryUS · 2008US · 2014
Rating——

Choose GitHub if

Software teams of any size that want hosted Git, CI/CD, security scanning and AI coding help in one platform.

  • Industry standard with the largest developer community
  • Generous free plan including private repos and CI minutes
  • Huge marketplace of Actions and integrations

Look elsewhere if: Teams that need deep issue tracking or a single self-managed DevSecOps suite (Jira, GitLab).

Choose Postman if

Development teams that want a shared, full-featured workspace for testing, mocking and documenting APIs.

  • Industry standard; many API vendors ship ready Postman collections
  • Testing, mocking, docs and monitoring in a single tool
  • Capable Free plan for solo developers

Look elsewhere if: Developers who want a lightweight Git-native client or just a docs portal (Bruno, Insomnia, ReadMe, Scalar).

GitHub vs Postman pricing

GitHub

  • Free$0Unlimited repos; 2,000 Actions min/mo, 500MB Packages
  • Team$4/user/mo3,000 Actions min/mo, 2GB Packages, protected branches
  • Enterprise$21/user/moFrom; 50,000 Actions min, SAML SSO, data residency
  • Copilot Pro$10/moIndividual AI coding; Pro+ $39, Max $100 per month

Postman

  • Free$01 user; collections, mock servers, up to 5 integrations
  • Solo$9/moBilled annually; 1 user, 400 AI credits/mo
  • Team$19/user/moBilled annually; unlimited users, 400 AI credits/user
  • EnterpriseCustomGovernance, 800 pooled AI credits/user, 100 integrations

GitHub · Key features

  • Unlimited public and private Git repositories with pull request reviews
  • GitHub Actions CI/CD with hosted Linux, Windows and macOS runners
  • Issues, Projects boards and roadmaps for planning work
  • Copilot code completion, chat and an autonomous coding agent
  • Codespaces cloud development environments billed per hour
  • Dependabot, code scanning and secret scanning for supply chain security

Cons

  • Actions, Codespaces and Copilot usage can push costs up
  • Advanced security features are paid add-ons
  • Project planning is lighter than Jira or Linear

Postman · Key features

  • Collections with pre-request scripts, tests and environment variables
  • Requests for REST, GraphQL, gRPC, WebSocket and MQTT APIs
  • Mock servers that simulate endpoints before the backend exists
  • Scheduled monitors for uptime and response checks
  • Collection runner and Postman CLI for CI/CD pipelines
  • Spec Hub and native Git sync for API definitions

Cons

  • Free plan no longer allows team collaboration
  • Heavy desktop app and a cloud account needed for most features
  • Collections live in a proprietary format, not plain files in your repo

GitHub vs Postman: FAQ

Which is cheaper, GitHub or Postman?

GitHub starts at $4/mo and Postman at $9/mo. Both prices are checked on the vendors' own pricing pages.

Do GitHub and Postman have a free plan?

Yes, both GitHub and Postman have a free plan; paid plans add more usage and features.

Not sure yet?