Step CI vs SoapUI / ReadyAPI

Free and open source

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

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

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

Everything, self-hosted

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

Emerging

Step CI · since 2022

Widely used

SmartBear · since 2005

• YAML workflows are easy to review in a pull request and need no runtime knowledge.
• Generates a starting suite from an OpenAPI spec.
• Includes basic load-testing capability in the same file format.

• 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.

• YAML hits a ceiling on complex conditional logic.
• Small project with limited community support.
• Ecosystem and reporting are thin compared to established tools.

• 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.

Small teams wanting declarative, repo-versioned API checks in CI.

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