When selecting a means to manage and scale your API contract testing initiative, you’ll need to consider the best way to host the Pact Broker. The Pact Broker is an application for sharing consumer driven contracts and verification results. It is optimized for use with “pacts” (contracts created by the Pact framework).
There are two options for hosting the Pact Broker:
- Self-host the Pact Broker
- Use PactFlow – fully and hosted managed service
Self-host the Pact Broker
The Pact Broker is an Open Source tool that requires you to deploy, administer, and host it yourself. Learn about sharing Pacts with the Pact Broker.
Use PactFlow as a plug-and-play option
Hosting for the Pact Broker is included in all PactFlow plans – the free Starter Plan, Team Plan, and Enterprise Plan (excluding on-premise deployment).
PactFlow supports the Pact contract testing specification and comes with other benefits, including capabilities designed to help organizations of all sizes start and scale their contract testing initiative with ease.
Differences between Pact Open Source and PactFlow
Compare the features to determine which option best suits your needs.
| Open Source | PactFlow | |
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| Contract testing mode: consumer driven Using the Pact OSS framework and tooling |
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| Contract testing mode: bi-directional Integrate with OpenAPI, and upgrade your existing tools into a powerful contract testing workflow |
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| AI-augmented contract testing Automate test creation and maintenance with AI to simplify testing and accelerate time to market. |
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| Contract types Which contract formats supported | Pact | Pact + OpenAPI specification - NEW! |
| Third-party integrations: Design first API contract testing in the SwaggerHub Editor |
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| Hosting Who will run the service? | Self-hosted | Fully managed or on premises |
| Collaboration features User management, role based access, team permissions etc. |
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| Secure access and administration SAML SSO, Sign-in via Google apps and GitHub organizations, SCIM support |
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| User interface | Basic | Advanced - including Can I Deploy |
| Team size | Small teams | Large teams |
| Support What commercial support is available | Community only |
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| API Tokens Authenticate to APIs using API bearer token |
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| Secrets Store CI credentials and other secrets securely as encrypted values |
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| Audit trail Full audit history of all platform activity |
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PactFlow for teams
For teams early in their adoption journey of PactFlow seeking a flexible, scalable, and secure contract testing solution.
- SaaS deployment
- Credit card billing
- Secrets
- Advanced user management
PactFlow for enterprise
For organizations requiring contract testing across multiple teams in a secure environment, available on-premise or on the cloud.
- On-premise or secure SaaS deployment
- SSO, SAML
- Advanced user management
- Secrets
Reasons to use PactFlow
If you use the Open Source Pact Broker, here are some reasons you may wish to try PactFlow.
- We’'ve upgraded the user experience to make things simpler – it's also a little easier on the eye
- No server administration or maintenance – spend your time delivering well-tested code, not managing infrastructure
- Support – have someone you can ask if you have problems
- More features – Pactflow is the OSS Pact Broker plus:
- UIs for verification results and webhooks managment
- API tokens – no more shared basic auth credentials
- SSO using GitHub, Google, and SAML
- Secrets management
- Teams, Users, Roles and Permissions
- Integration into your SOC through our Audit API
- Exclusive bi-directional contract testing framework
