SmartBear Software , the leading provider of software quality and performance management tools, announced the general availability of SoapUI 5.0 with market leading features to support the growing REST API testing market, specifically the challenge of undocumented REST APIs. SoapUI 5.0 adds richer REST testing capabilities including support for REST Discovery, REST Mocking and OAuth 2.0. REST is the rapidly growing, predominant method used to build public APIs for Web applications, and along with SoapUI, shortens learning curves, improves time-to-market and helps to easily identify bugs.

A common problem with REST APIs is they do not require any documentation explaining how the API works, the available requests and expected responses. These problems have created an abundance of undocumented APIs where functionality is only partially disclosed or not disclosed at all. Testing these APIs is time consuming, as it requires the user to either get information from the API developer or the user must try and explore the API code manually.

“The SoapUI team at SmartBear has outdone themselves with version 5.0,” said Darin Weakley , Senior Software Engineer at MapQuest . “REST Discovery is easy to use and rapidly generates test suites and cases, allowing me to focus on the data I use for testing as opposed to service and test generation. I’m thrilled about the release of SoapUI 5.0 and will definitely use this feature in testing our APIs.”

New REST Discovery 
By using SoapUI’s REST Discovery, the user can simply record the interactions and traffic with the API and automatically add the resources associated with the API into SoapUI. Further, REST Discovery allows users to create a test suite from the recorded interactions, saving critical time that would otherwise have been spent trying to understand the API and setting up the required tests associated with it. REST Discovery can either record traffic via SoapUI’s internal browser, a proxy, native browsers or even mobile apps. Any traffic going through the defined proxy is picked up by SoapUI, where resources are plotted and test suites are set up.

“REST Discovery is a brand new and ground breaking feature which helps users make sense of all the undocumented APIs out there,” said Matti Hjelm , Product Owner of SoapUI at SmartBear. “It helps users save precious time and decrease the likelihood of human error when testing. Combined with the seamless REST Mocking support, it’s one of the most powerful features we’ve released in recent times.”

New REST Mocking

In addition to REST Discovery, new SoapUI Pro 5.0 contains REST Mocking. A REST API, per definition, does not require specification of what responses certain requests can receive. Hence, setting up a mock can become a time consuming activity with having to manually define each response the mocked API should provide. By first exploring your API using REST Discovery, SoapUI automatically captures all the responses received. Users then seamlessly create a full mock – requests, responses and headers – based on recorded interactions. This, apart from saving time, ensures realistic data is used in the mock.

New OAuth 2 Support
SoapUI 5.0 adds support for OAuth 2 protected APIs. SoapUI’s OAuth 2 Profiles allow users to easily set up credentials for users. This allows for quick switching between different user credentials, saving the hassle of re-entering them multiple times. Furthermore, through SoapUI’s OAuth 2 Flow Automation, users can set up automatic token refreshment, enabling users to easily hook OAuth 2 protected API’s tests to Continuous Integration environments.

Pricing and Availability

SoapUI Pro is generally available. Prices start at $449 (399 euros), including REST Discovery, REST Mocking, and OAuth 2 support. Download a free trial of SoapUI Pro at http://www.soapui.org/ . A new open source version of SoapUI can also be downloaded from the site with limited functionality.