--- title: Show HN: Ghostman – A fast, keyboard-driven TUI API... description: Ghostman is a terminal-based API client and webhook inspector built as a lightweight alternative to Postman and Insomnia. It launches in under 200ms, stores... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/show-hn-ghostman-a-fast-keyboard-driven-tui-api-client-and-webhook-inspector-gjd5dafvn twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Show HN: Ghostman – A fast, keyboard-driven TUI API client and webhook inspector | daily.dev og:description: Ghostman is a terminal-based API client and webhook inspector built as a lightweight alternative to Postman and Insomnia. It launches in under 200ms, stores... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/show-hn-ghostman-a-fast-keyboard-driven-tui-api-client-and-webhook-inspector-gjd5dafvn og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/GJD5daFvn.png og:image:alt: Show HN: Ghostman – A fast, keyboard-driven TUI API client and webhook inspector og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Show HN: Ghostman – A fast, keyboard-driven TUI API client and webhook inspector **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 4 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Ghostman is a terminal-based API client and webhook inspector built as a lightweight alternative to Postman and Insomnia. It launches in under 200ms, stores collections as plain YAML in '.ghostman/collections.yaml' for Git tracking, and runs fully local with no cloud accounts. A built-in webhook receiver spins up on 'http://127.0.0.1:9090' via Ctrl+W to catch and inspect incoming webhooks. It supports GET, POST, PUT, DELETE and PATCH requests, latency telemetry, and pretty JSON formatting, and requires Python 3.10 or newer. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### how can I test and inspect incoming webhooks locally without using ngrok or webhook.site Ghostman, a terminal API client, includes a built-in webhook receiver you start with Ctrl+W, which spins up an ephemeral server at http://127.0.0.1:9090. Pointing a webhook provider or a curl request at that address lets you capture headers and payloads live in the Live Webhooks tab, without any external tunneling service. _daily.dev surfaces lightweight alternatives like this for developers tired of ngrok setup overhead._ ### is there a lightweight terminal alternative to Postman that doesn't require a cloud account Ghostman is a keyboard-driven terminal UI API client built in Python with Textual, designed as a local-first alternative to Postman and Insomnia. It launches in under 200ms, stores collections as plain YAML files you can commit to Git, and avoids the 800MB to 1.5GB RAM usage and cloud login requirements of heavier GUI clients. _developers weighing API client options can track tools like this on daily.dev before switching._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 1 discussion and 38 comments across hackernews (as of 2026-10-31). **TL;DR:** Reaction is dominated by suspicion that the project was vibe-coded and dumped as a single commit, with doubts about long-term maintenance, though some defend FOSS tools starting small and like the TUI/webhook-catching niche. **Sentiment:** 25% positive · 25% mixed · 50% skeptical **The case for** - Some see value in a local-first, no-Electron TUI alternative given frustration with Postman/Insomnia/Bruno's freemium pivots. - The built-in webhook catcher fills a real gap not covered by similar tools like Posting. - Defenders argue it's fine for small open-source projects to start rough since they can be forked or improved by users. **The pushback** - Several commenters suspect the tool was vibe-coded very quickly, citing the single initial commit as evidence of low effort. - Doubts that the project will be maintained long-term, citing past similar 'flurry then abandon' patterns. - The README's 'no Electron bloat' selling point is seen as contradictory/out of place for a TUI, suspected to be LLM-generated. - A similar, more mature tool (Posting) already exists from a maintainer of the underlying framework, raising 'why this' questions. **By community** - hackernews (heated): Discussion splits sharply between commenters dismissing the project as hastily vibe-coded and likely to be abandoned, and others defending it as a legitimate small FOSS entry worth trying. **Hottest debate:** Whether building and sharing a single-commit, likely AI-assisted project is worth criticizing or just a normal way to launch a small FOSS tool. **Open questions** - Will the project actually be maintained beyond the initial release? - How does it compare in practice to existing tools like Posting that already cover most of the same use case? - Why inspect webhooks manually at all when agents or normal UIs could handle it? **Highlights** > I mean this is clearly unfinished and was certainly vibe-coded literally yesterday. > No cloud accounts. No 1GB Electron bloat. 100% Local-first. This would make me want to use Postman (Electron) over this, since I know that this will absolutely be unmaintained in the a few years. > — [rvz on hackernews · 1 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50318296) > Absolutely unwarranted gatekeeping and bashing in this thread for the most benign reason. I think it looks neat. The API client space definitely needs some new FOSS entries after postman, insomnia, bruno all followed the same free -> freemium bait and switch way too common in dev tooling. Paywalling features that are already or previously implemented is a gross move, and feels especially egregious in the tooling space because developers integrate them as part of their flow and to get a random (albeit important) cog in that flow rugpulled or kneecapped adds undue annoyance and burden in whatever random project you happen to be working on at the time. Nice work OP, I love these TUI tooling, and we need more options in this space in particular. Hopefully, next time you'll use git from the beginning (for your own organizational sake) but I'm honestly baffled people will disregard a whole FOSS project because of how you chose to make it public. Do better HN populace. > — [pull\_my\_finger on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50318939) > back at peak Slop HN, there were a ton of these, the fastest I recall was a few minutes from first commit time to Slop HN time example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47492202 I recall sub-10m, but don't care to search has any harder > — [verdverm on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50318725) > Without having looked to deeply into this..why? https://github.com/darrenburns/posting Exists, its from on of the co-devs of textual the framework this uses anyway..and more mature I would wager to say. > — [burnoutdv on hackernews · 2 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50318260) > That's an LLM README for you. They probably used the sentence "without electron" during development in some prompt and it ended up there > — [LelouBil on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50318673) **Source threads** - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50300902) · 25 points · 38 comments ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [coder/ghostty-web: Ghostty for the web with xterm.js API compatibility](https://daily.dev/posts/coder-ghostty-web-ghostty-for-the-web-with-xterm-js-api-compatibility-qugdhfiyh) · Hacker News · 61 upvotes · 1 comments - [Ghostwriter v7.3.0: A Fresh New Look](https://daily.dev/posts/ghostwriter-v7-3-0-a-fresh-new-look-er72byykx) · SpecterOps · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Ghostty 1.3 terminal brings big new features](https://daily.dev/posts/ghostty-1-3-terminal-brings-big-new-features-i6zyhnirj) · omg\! ubuntu\! · 192 upvotes · 25 comments --- Tags: [#python](https://daily.dev/tags/python), [#devtools](https://daily.dev/tags/devtools), [#cli](https://daily.dev/tags/cli), [#local-first](https://daily.dev/tags/local-first) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/show-hn-ghostman-a-fast-keyboard-driven-tui-api-client-and-webhook-inspector-gjd5dafvn) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Show HN: Ghostman – A fast, keyboard-driven TUI API client and webhook inspector","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/show-hn-ghostman-a-fast-keyboard-driven-tui-api-client-and-webhook-inspector-gjd5dafvn","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/show-hn-ghostman-a-fast-keyboard-driven-tui-api-client-and-webhook-inspector-gjd5dafvn"},"datePublished":"2026-10-31T19:19:36.898Z","dateModified":"2026-10-31T19:20:10.831Z","description":"Ghostman is a terminal-based API client and webhook inspector built as a lightweight alternative to Postman and Insomnia. 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