SoapUI / ReadyAPI vs REST Assured

From $829 per year (indicative, ReadyAPI Test module)

Free and open source

ReadyAPI is licensed per module — Test, Performance, Virtualization — and buying all three multiplies the cost.

Free and open source. You pay in engineering time and CI minutes.

SoapUI open source is free and covers SOAP and REST functional testing.

Everything, self-hosted

Widely used

SmartBear · since 2005

Widely used

OSS community · since 2010

• Unmatched SOAP, WSDL and JMS support for legacy enterprise integration work.
• ReadyAPI bundles functional, security, load and virtualisation in one product family.
• Groovy scripting escape hatch for anything the GUI cannot express.

• API tests live in the codebase, versioned and reviewed with the service.
• Readable given/when/then chains that map directly onto HTTP semantics.
• Full access to Java for setup, data and assertions.

• Dated Java desktop UI that feels heavy next to modern clients.
• Project files are XML and merge badly in version control.
• Modular licensing gets expensive fast.

• Java only, and requires developers rather than manual testers.
• No GUI, so exploratory request work needs a separate client.
• Verbose for very large payload assertions.

Enterprises testing SOAP services, message queues and legacy integration layers.

JVM teams that want API tests in the same repository as the service.