SoapUI / ReadyAPI vs SuperTest

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 2014

• 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.

• Fast: no network, no separate server process, no port conflicts in CI.
• Tiny API you can learn in ten minutes.
• Works with whichever runner you already use.

• 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.

• Node.js only, and only for services you host yourself.
• In-process testing skips the real network stack, proxies and load balancer.
• No environment management or collection concept for cross-service flows.

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

Node.js API projects testing their own routes in the unit/integration layer.