What's the best free API testing tool for automation?

[marcuskeenton]

I'm moving our API testing out of the manual-and-hope-for-the-best stage and into something that actually runs automatically. Budget is basically zero, so I'm looking at free and open source options rather than anything with per-seat pricing.

The main thing I care about is automation fit: runs headless in CI, fails the build on a real regression, and doesn't need someone hand-maintaining every case as the API changes. Plenty of tools are great for manually poking at endpoints but fall over the moment you want them running unattended on every commit.

I went through this rundown of free api testing tools which helped me separate the manual-first tools from the ones actually built for automation, but I'd rather hear real experience.

What are people running for automated API testing on a free stack, and how much CI setup did it actually take? Anything that looked good in a demo but didn't hold up once the API surface grew?

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