openEHR Explorer

The Postman for openEHR

A Postman alternative built specifically for openEHR, and how it stacks up against every other developer tool in the ecosystem. No dedicated openEHR GUI existed — until now.

Why not just use Postman for openEHR?

No openEHR Postman collection ships by default

Postman has no notion of EHRs, compositions, or templates — every request against an openEHR CDR is built and read by hand.

Node IDs stay raw

Postman shows at0006, not “Systolic”. You still need the OPT or Web Template open in another tab to decode a response.

No FLAT path autocomplete

Building a FLAT composition body in Postman means hand-typing every archetype path from the template JSON.

Postman is still great for raw HTTP

openEHR Explorer isn't trying to replace Postman for general API work — it's what to reach for once you're specifically working with openEHR CDR data. See the full feature comparison below.

✓ Full support
◑ Partial / limited
✗ Not supported
† Planned (Phase 2)
? Not yet evaluated
Feature
openEHR Explorer
Desktop app (Tauri)
macOS · Win · Linux
openEHRTool v2
Web app (Docker)
CRS4 / open-source
Postman / curl
Generic REST client
No openEHR awareness
Better Studio
Web app (proprietary)
Better Platform only
ehr-ctrl
Desktop app (Windows)
Free, newly discovered
Setup & Access
No Docker / backend required
✓
✗
Docker Compose
✓
✗
SaaS / hosted
✓
Native Windows app
Installs in < 2 min
✓
dmg/exe/deb/AppImage, brew/scoop
◑
docker compose up
✓
✗
Account required
✓
Direct download, no registration
Works with local EHRBase
✓
✓
✓
✗
✓
Multi-server profiles with version detection
✓
Auto version detect
✗
◑
Env vars / manual
✗
✗
Not evidenced on site
Supports Better Platform
◑
Partial, CRUD in beta
◑
✓
✓
Native
✗
CDR-agnostic (generic REST)
✓
◑
✓
✗
◑
EHRBase-focused
EHR & Composition Browsing
Paginated EHR list
✓
✓
✗
✓
✓
Server-side EHR search (subject, namespace, system, etc.)
✓
AQL-backed search
◑
✗
✓
◑
Not detailed on site
Compositions grouped by template
✓
◑
✗
✓
✓
Raw canonical JSON view
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
Template-aware "pretty" view ¹
✓
Unique differentiator
✗
✗
◑
✗
Raw node IDs, no label resolution
FLAT format view
✓
✗
◑
Manual only
◑
✓
Composition version history
✓
◑
✗
✓
◑
Not detailed on site
One-click ID copy
✓
Every ID / path
◑
✗
◑
✗
Not evidenced on site
Template Tooling
Template list & metadata
✓
✓
✗
✓
✓
Details panel: id, version, localized name &sup4;
Web Template tree inspector
✓
Visual node tree
✗
✗
◑
✓
3 scoped trees, archetype/data badges, cardinality &sup4;
OPT drag-and-drop upload
✓
✓
✗
✓
◑
Upload supported, method unclear
FLAT path copy panel ²
✓
Unique differentiator
✗
✗
✗
◑
Raw path values shown in tree, copy unclear &sup4;
FLAT path validator
†
Phase 2 (oehrpy)
✗
✗
✗
✗
OPT XML pretty-printed view
✓
Indented, syntax-highlighted
?
✓
Native response formatting
?
◑
Composition XML view, not OPT-specific
AQL Query Interface
AQL query editor
✓
Syntax highlighting
✓
◑
Raw body only
✓
✓
Full editor w/ autocomplete (v1.4.0) &sup4;
Tabular result view
✓
Auto-columns
✓
✗
Raw JSON
✓
✓
Saved query library
✓
◑
✓
Collections
◑
✓
Export results to CSV
✓
◑
✗
◑
✓
AQL path autocomplete
✓
3-layer CodeMirror
✗
✗
◑
✓
Template-aware, 3-level autocomplete &sup4;
Developer Experience
Request Inspector (view all HTTP traffic)
✓
Bottom drawer panel
✗
✓
Native feature
✗
✓
Request history/replay
Keyboard shortcuts (navigation + actions)
✓
Cmd+1-4, Cmd+Shift+I
✗
✓
◑
✗
Not evidenced on site
Open-source / self-hostable
✓
Apache 2.0
✓
Apache 2.0
◑
Freemium
✗
Proprietary
✗
Closed-source
Composition diff tool
†
Phase 2
✗
✗
✗
✗
Synthetic data generation
†
Phase 2 (MapEHR)
✗
✗
✗
✓
Generated from templates
Secure credential storage (OS keychain)
✓
Keychain + encrypted-file fallback
?
◑
Vault variables, not OS keychain
?
◑
Not detailed on site
Signed auto-update (in-place)
✓
Checks GitHub Releases
✗
Manual docker pull
✓
Self-updates
✓
Hosted, always latest
◑
Not detailed on site
Advanced Resources & Dashboard
EHR_STATUS view & update
✓
Modifiable/queryable flags editable
?
◑
Manual REST call
?
✓
Explicit handling
DIRECTORY (folder hierarchy) operations ³
◑
Browse tree (read-only)
?
◑
Manual REST call
?
?
Not seen in hands-on test
CONTRIBUTION tracking / audit trail ³
◑
View by UID + linked from version history — no list endpoint in the openEHR API
?
◑
Manual REST call
?
?
Not seen in hands-on test
STORED_QUERY execution
✓
List, view & execute with params
?
◑
Manual REST call
?
✓
Confirmed in-app, per-version granularity
Landing dashboard (live EHR/composition/template counts)
✓
Overview tab — live counts + server info, refreshable
?
✗
?
✓
Feature score
32.5of 37
12.5of 37
15.5of 37
15of 37
23of 37

Unique to openEHR Explorer

Template-aware composition rendering

at0006 becomes "Systolic". No other tool resolves node IDs to template labels.

FLAT path panel

Every Web Template path, one click to copy. Eliminates the most common source of EHRBase integration errors.

Zero-dependency install

No Docker, no Python, no Node runtime. A native binary that opens in < 2 seconds.

Multi-server profile switcher

Local dev, staging, colleague's EHRBase — switch without restarting or editing config.

¹ Resolves raw node IDs (at0006) to human-readable template labels ("Systolic"). No other tool does this.

² One-click copy of every FLAT path from the Web Template tree — eliminates the #1 developer pain point when building compositions.

³ DIRECTORY and CONTRIBUTION support are both partial. DIRECTORY has a read-only browsing tree in the EHR detail panel; creating, updating, or deleting a DIRECTORY isn't supported by the app yet (the Request Inspector only shows HTTP traffic — it doesn't send requests), so that still requires an external REST client. CONTRIBUTION can be viewed by UID — entered directly, or reached from a composition's Versions tab — but the openEHR REST API has no endpoint to list all contributions for an EHR, so there's no browsable list.

&sup4; Per ehr-ctrl's v1.4.0 release notes (Aug 27, 2026, openEHR Discourse): the Template Viewer gained three scoped tree views (context/content/everything-else) with per-node localized names, an archetype-id badge, a data-element badge, a cardinality column, and a toggle to show raw path values — counted as a Web Template tree inspector, and as partial credit toward a FLAT path panel since the raw-path toggle wasn't described as copyable. The AQL editor gained bracket matching, undo/redo, and live autocomplete in multiple levels (keywords/types, then alias-bound record paths, then template-specific archetype paths once a template id is entered) — counted as AQL path autocomplete. Not yet independently verified hands-on; scored from the release notes themselves rather than the marketing site.

Legend: ✓ = 1 · ◑ = 0.5 · ✗ = 0 · ? = not yet evaluated, scored as 0 pending verification · openEHRTool v2: github.com/crs4/openEHRTool-v2 · Better Studio: proprietary, Better Platform only · ehr-ctrl: ehr-ctrl.info, free Windows desktop client (ClaroTech, v1.4.0) — most rows scored from its public marketing site (home + features pages) only, not hands-on testing; see &sup4; for the v1.4.0 rows scored from its release notes. Rows noted "Not evidenced on site" (keyboard shortcuts, one-click ID copy, self-hostable, multi-server profiles) remain unconfirmed absences rather than verified ones.

Last updated August 2026 · reflects openEHR Explorer v0.6.0.

Frequently asked questions

Is there an official Postman collection for openEHR?

Not a universal one. Individual CDR vendors publish their own OpenAPI specs and sometimes example Postman collections, but there's no single canonical openEHR Postman collection — every CDR has slightly different endpoints, and Postman has no built-in concept of templates, FLAT paths, or archetype node IDs. openEHR Explorer replaces the collection-building step entirely: point it at a server and it discovers EHRs, templates, and compositions for you.

Can I use Postman to test openEHR REST APIs?

Yes — Postman (or curl) works fine for raw openEHR REST calls against EHRBase, Better Platform, or any other openEHR CDR, since they're standard HTTP/JSON APIs. What Postman can't do is resolve archetype node IDs to readable labels, render a Web Template as a tree, or autocomplete FLAT/AQL paths — that's the gap openEHR Explorer fills.

What's a good Postman alternative for openEHR development?

openEHR Explorer is a free, open-source desktop alternative to Postman built specifically for openEHR: it understands EHR status, compositions, templates, and AQL natively, so you don't hand-build requests or decode responses by hand.

Does openEHR Explorer replace Postman entirely?

No — Postman is still a solid general-purpose REST client. openEHR Explorer is a focused tool for the openEHR-specific parts of the workflow: browsing EHRs, inspecting templates, building compositions, and running AQL. Many developers keep both installed and reach for whichever fits the task.