Compare Hurl and swiftype on pricing, features, platforms, and ratings — both API Tools tools, Open Source vs Tiered subscription: Standard $79/mo, Pro…
At a Glance
Hurl
swiftype
Primary category
API Tools
API Tools
Rating
Not documented
Not documented
Pricing model
Open Source
Tiered subscription: Standard $79/mo, Pro $199/mo, Premium custom-quoted, plus metered add-ons for extra documents/queries/engines/domains; 14-day free trial, no credit card required.
Starting price
Free
Not documented
Free plan
Not documented
Not documented
Free trial
Not documented
Not documented
Platforms
Mac, Windows
Not documented
Team collaboration
Not documented
Not documented
AI features
Not documented
Not documented
Public API
Yes
Yes
Pricing Compared
Starting price reflects the lowest paid tier, not the full cost for every team size or usage level.
Hurl
Open Source — Free N/A
swiftype
No individual plan breakdown documented yet.
Pros & Cons
Hurl
Pros
Completely free and open source with no paid tiers or limits
Lightweight single binary with no scripting language or GUI required
Powerful built-in assertions make it a genuine API testing tool, not just a request runner
Plain-text format is easy to version control, review, and diff
Backed and actively maintained by Orange with a stable release history since 2020
Cons
Smaller plugin and template ecosystem compared to Postman or Insomnia
No polished graphical interface, which can be a barrier for non-technical testers
Steeper learning curve for complex chained scenarios compared to point-and-click tools
Limited built-in mocking or virtualization capabilities
Less mainstream brand recognition than established API tools like Postman
swiftype
Pros
Self-serve setup with a 14-day free trial and no credit card required
Crawler-based indexing means no need to build custom search infrastructure
Built-in relevance tuning, synonyms, and multilingual support
SOC 2 compliant with documented security practices
Backed by Elastic, a major search-industry vendor, since its 2017 acquisition
Cons
Pricing scales quickly with usage (documents, queries, engines, and domains are all metered add-ons)
Standard plan only crawls weekly, which may be too slow for fast-changing content
Now a legacy product line under Elastic, whose enterprise search focus has shifted toward App Search/Enterprise Search on the Elastic Stack
Enterprise-grade features (dedicated hardware, account manager, custom SLA) are gated behind a custom-quoted Premium plan
Use Cases
Hurl
API Testing in CI/CD Pipelines — Run automated HTTP assertion tests on every commit or deployment as part of a build pipeline.
Quick HTTP Request Scripting — Script and chain HTTP requests in plain text for debugging or exploring an API without writing code.
Contract and Regression Testing — Maintain version-controlled test suites that validate REST and GraphQL API responses over time.