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SmartBear API Hub vs SoapUI comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

SmartBear API Hub
Ranking in API Testing Tools
14th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
3.7
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SoapUI
Ranking in API Testing Tools
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the API Testing Tools category, the mindshare of SmartBear API Hub is 1.5%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SoapUI is 2.0%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Testing Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SoapUI2.0%
SmartBear API Hub1.5%
Other96.5%
API Testing Tools
 

Featured Reviews

AR
QA automation at Sun Life Financial
Automated API and database regression testing has reduced resources and improved insurance validation
I have noticed some errors regarding the connection with Bitbucket or Git. It generally takes some time in SmartBear and ReadyAPI. From the testing perspective, it saves a lot of time because it covered a whole regression suite with database and data-driven testing. It generally saves us time from fetching the values manually from UI. Instead, you can run your regression suite on a daily or weekly basis. This helps us to identify some errors as well as saves us time. There is a delay in connection with SmartBear API Hub; sometimes the connection is lost between the Bitbucket and ReadyAPI. When we try to reconnect those from the properties level, from the setting level, it generally takes a lot of time. This perspective can be improved with the Bitbucket and Git connection. We can also integrate a particular framework in ReadyAPI itself so that we can also run our Selenium code from the UI automation perspective. Right now, we are currently using that feature, but it requires framework-level changes. We can provide it to every user so that users can easily run their Selenium scripts, fetch the APIs, and validate the database. This helps us to create one-to-one end-to-end flow for the purpose of testing. We can enhance that feature and we can also enhance the Git functionality because we are using Sourcetree as well for connecting Bitbucket and ReadyAPI in order to push and pull our changes. That particular functionality takes a lot of time. Sometimes the changes that we have made in our regression suite are not reflecting on the recent changes in ReadyAPI. This is sometimes difficult to track and takes a lot of time to refresh that. I would say we should enhance the UI automation feature and we can also enhance the Git connection feature as well.
PranavChaudhari - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior at EY
Structured API suites have improved automated regression and now catch issues earlier
One area where improvement can be made is the user interface. The user interface is pretty understandable compared to another platform like Postman. It is very minimal in terms of what we can see on the UI. We have so many functionalities, and if we try to increase the font size and everything, what happens is we only focus on what we can see on the screen because of large text and large fields. We were missing most of the features because the UI has been optimized with bigger fonts and everything. Even though everything was clearly visible, a lot of things were missing because it did not have space for keeping all our important tabs or buttons or features in one place. This is reduced in Postman because there are a lot of big animations, and making it more fancy does not mean it is useful. This tool is already improved, and I appreciate it, although others might not. Even though the UI feels outdated, it is useful and it serves the purpose. Collaboration wise, it could be better. We store our suites and they are only limited to us and locally available. We cannot share them with everybody. Collaboration features would help, for example, making it easy to share test suites or track the changes within teams without relying too much on external tools. That would be helpful if it is improved in SoapUI. Additionally, for coding, if the person is not a beginner, then it would be easy to have built-in guidance such as step-by-step hints or examples for creating a test suite. That would be good.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I want to add that the best part was we got one single platform where we can do everything from governance to contract validation to development to testing in a single tool rather than hopping from one tool to another, and I guess that's the best feature anybody can think of."
"Having a single source of truth for API contracts makes it easier to understand the request and response schemas, keeps automation test cases aligned with the API changes, and reduces misunderstandings during the development and testing cycle."
"SmartBear API Hub has positively impacted my organization as it helps to create our regression suite as well as connection with Jenkins to run smoke testing and regression settings, it saves a lot of time and it is one tool for every testing."
"SmartBear API Hub has positively impacted my organization by improving API quality, reducing manual testing efforts, and enabling faster feedback through test automation."
"SoapUI is really great for my team because when we are trying to create test cases and the requests that we are going to send to an API, we can create one SoapUI folder which will be XML and this XML is used by SoapUI itself."
"We need to test the APIs as we build them. I use the product for API testing. You can do AWS security in SoapUI. With SoapUI, we can even perform mutual SSL authentication by incorporating certificates into the SoapUI browser. This allows us to send transactions to the backend downstream."
"SoapUI had a pretty positive impact on our testing process, especially in terms of reliability and efficiency."
"The solution's most valuable features are the designing of API, Property Transfer feature, and Groovy plugin."
"SoapUI is a pretty simple tool."
 

Cons

"SmartBear API Hub can be improved, as every product has challenges."
"I would want to see user experience enhanced, as navigating a large collection of APIs can sometimes be challenging."
"Sometimes the connection is lost between the Bitbucket and ReadyAPI and when we try to reconnect those from the properties level, from the setting level, it generally takes a lot of time."
"There are more advanced API testing tools than SoapUI, and SoapUI could be made better."
"SoapUI is not that scalable."
"Collaboration wise, it could be better. We store our suites and they are only limited to us and locally available."
"The product needs to be available as an extension for the Chrome browser."
"The solution should include some plug-ins to share the generated reports over email."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"SoapUI is a cheap tool that does not have an expensive license."
"SoapUI is an open-source solution."
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Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SmartBear API Hub?
My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing has been positive, as these expenses were covered by my company, resulting in a mutually beneficial outcome.
What needs improvement with SmartBear API Hub?
I don't think I'm the right person to say how SmartBear API Hub can be better since I want to spend more time checking it out before just blurting out suggestions. So far, so good, and I don't real...
What is your primary use case for SmartBear API Hub?
My main use case for SmartBear API Hub is that I was looking for a better tool in the market that can handle everything from documentation to contract testing, to API testing as an independent tool...
What needs improvement with SoapUI?
One area where improvement can be made is the user interface. The user interface is pretty understandable compared to another platform like Postman. It is very minimal in terms of what we can see o...
What is your primary use case for SoapUI?
I have been working as a software development engineer for five years and have been using SoapUI for almost five years. We were working with REST APIs, and although there are other tools available ...
What advice do you have for others considering SoapUI?
I suggest starting with a clearer goal, which will help. Begin with a few APIs, testing them manually, and then trying the features such as simpler automation or sequential and parallel running of ...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about SmartBear API Hub vs. SoapUI and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,228 professionals have used our research since 2012.