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Blackbird vs. Smartbear

From bear-y complex to Blackbird simple

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Why Blackbird?

The legacy is deep with SmartBear’s portfolio of API tool brands, including the originator of OpenAPI, Swagger. But a forced combination of (even some old favorite) tools does not make for a pleasant or productive process. Blackbird API development platform, on the other hand, was purpose-built to prioritize developer experience. The new platform was designed to reduce common friction points moving through the API lifecycle, increase development velocity, and facilitate collaboration to enable more, higher quality APIs in a fraction of the time.


Blackbird seamlessly connects API design, mocking, and testing in one modular platform (UI and CLI), with a dedicated hosted development environment or built-in access to K8s to reduce “bear”iers and fuel high-quality API production. With these Blackbird-hosted environments, you save on infrastructure costs. Plus, Blackbird's simple, predictable pricing model removes the complexity of managing multiple SmartBear product licenses.


You deserve more than the bear necessities in your API development, it’s time to soar with Blackbird!

Try Blackbird Today

See why developers are switching from Smartbear to Blackbird for faster, smarter API development. Ask yourself, “Why wrestle with a bear when you can soar with Blackbird?” Contact us today about switching to Blackbird, scoring a great deal, and letting us handle your bear of a problem.

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Feature Comparison: Blackbird vs. Smartbear

Ambassador Blackbird

Smartbear

Ambassador Blackbird

Smartbear

Ambassador Blackbird

Smartbear

Ambassador Blackbird

Smartbear

End-to-End API Development

✅ Modular platform for API design, mocking, codegen, debugging, and iteration with a dedicated hosted development environment

⚠️ Yes, but multiple tools are needed for different API lifecycle stages, requiring additional configuration and licensing

Mocking & Testing

✅ Instant, shareable API mocks with the ability to run and debug (with IDE integration and breakpoints), and simple validation, fidelity, and integration testing via hosted ephemeral deployments or a local connection to your remote K8s. Automations available through headless auth with full git integration coming in Spring of 2025.

⚠️ Requires separate tools (e.g., ReadyAPI, SwaggerHub) with varying levels of integration and setup. Also Offers robust automation capabilities, including cross-platform testing & self-healing features

Development Environment & Ephemeral Deployments

✅ Dedicated, hosted containerized test environments to deploy ephemerally (for testing) and the option to route remote traffic to local computers for debugging production without requiring complex set-ups and DevOps support

✅ With their TestComplete tool, export options to an external application for testing, however, no ability to run and debug without affecting production traffic. Environment still needed. Their tool TestComplete integrates with CI/CD tools (Jenkins, Azure DevOps), which can automate the deployment of ephemeral environments. Allows triggers of automated tests in TestComplete after each ephemeral deployment to validate application behavior in a production-like environment.

Collaboration

✅ Shareable links throughout the API development process (to expose mocks, code, deployments, etc) with keys for security

⚠️ Collaboration varies across SmartBear tools, with some requiring additional configurations for team-based workflows

Code Generation

✅ No infrastructure management required; instant prod-like environments (hosted by us); no setup required unless initiating connection with remote K8s (via Telepresence)

⛔ Complaints of complex setup and configuration across tools, often needing dedicated infrastructure support

AI Integration

✅ AI-assisted API design & codegen

✅ Uses AI across its tools, particularly in test automation (via TestComplete and HaloAI) to automate visual regression testing, generate test data, and create API contract tests

Cost & Licensing

✅ Simple, user-based pricing that scales from individual developers to large, multiple teams

⛔ A confusing mixture of pricing models from combined tools that can be expensive with multiple product licenses and add-ons

Why Choose Blackbird?

Frictionless & Flexible API Development

Blackbird stands out because it eliminates complexity while providing powerful API development features in one seamless, modular platform. While SmartBear’s suite of tools and their API Hub are extensive, they add up to higher costs, more configuration, and a convolute user experience. With Blackbird, you get design to delivery in a single, developer-friendly environment. If you're looking for speed and simplicity without sacrificing power, Blackbird is the smart option.

Instant Production-Like Environments

Enjoy hosted, containerized test environments that mirror production and enable developers to mock, run, and deploy APIs quickly without complex setups.

No Heavy Infrastructure Burden

Unlike SmartBear's suite of tools, Blackbird offers a hosted solution–ready to use without configuration headaches and heavy infrastructure costs. That means lower infra costs (literally cut cloud costs for development environments) and reduced inter-team dependencies.

Build a Better Sandbox

Blackbird enables turn-key sandbox set-up, infrastructure included–i.e. no need for API consumers’ mock and test traffic to mingle with production traffic. In contrast, SmartBear’s tools, like ReadyAPI offer sandbox environments for testing and virtualization but require setup and integration to your own infrastructure. Additionally, Smartbear’s sandbox does not offer the same sharable links features, which Blackbird does to allow for collaboration during testing and for other CI/CD tools to use it as well.

Why teams love Blackbird

We choose to use Blackbird since it allows us to build the API in the shortest amount of time possible while also producing a killer API!

The Humorie Team

While creating tests in Python, we had to create some scenarios of each endpoint. We fixed some bugs in the code but it did take longer time to debug with various test cases when compared with Blackbird setup

The GroceryGuardian Team

We wanted to leverage Ambassador’s Blackbird tool to showcase the rapid development to save developers time from start to finish

The GroceryGuardian Team

We need to give this huge lift of productivity to each and everyone. With a solution like Blackbird, plus what we are already doing, will help people to adapt their skills and be more innovative…that’s the holy grail.

Driss Lamrani, CEO A2IM Robot Advisors

[Blackbird] makes things very easy to use. Without proper API specs, nothing works well, that's what you need [in a tool]

Michael Levan, Cloud Native Consultant

Blackbird's actually great, when you have a complex workflow in a dashboard SPA that involves multiple steps, finalized with payment, that ca fail due to connectivity, simulation of error like packet drops or session expiration is highly valuable during aggressive automated testing

Principal SRE & Infra Architect

Hands down a must have tool for faster, smarter API Development. The tool is a lifesaver in generating clean, server-side, and client-side boilerplate code. This allows me to focus on the unique aspects of my APIs rather than spending time on repetitive coding tasks

Shinghai Zivuku, Tech Writer

Try Blackbird Today

See why developers are switching from Smartbear to Blackbird for faster, smarter API development. Ask yourself, “Why wrestle with a bear when you can soar with Blackbird?” Contact us today about switching to Blackbird, scoring a great deal, and letting us handle your bear of a problem.


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