Orbit is joining Postman!

Today, we’re excited to announce that two spacefaring companies are combining their powers. In other words, Orbit is joining Postman, the leading API platform, where our scope and ambitions will broaden but our mission will remain the same: to help companies build awesome developer communities. As part of the Postman API Network, Orbit will apply our technology and expertise to help API builders discover, grow, and serve their communities right on Postman.

Why Postman? 

Because the communities are already there. More than 30 million developers and 500,000 organizations use Postman to discover and develop against tens of thousands of APIs—and they’ve made the Postman API Network the largest API hub in the world. 

And these developers are not passive—they are actively calling APIs and building real products on top of them. This creates a huge opportunity for API builders to engage directly with some of their most important developers, their inner circle as we'd refer to it in the Orbit Model. These developers have mountains of feedback, suggestions, roadmap ideas, and real-world experience just waiting to be shared. Many of them are on Postman every day, some for hours at a time.

The community is there and waiting to be catalyzed. 

Given the size and engagement, we believe this is the single biggest developer community-building opportunity on the planet right now, so naturally, it's been exciting to pursue this partnership and to (finally!) share it with you all today.

As we'll be 100% focused on our mission at Postman, we will be winding down the Orbit product as you know it today. We realize this affects our current users and customers, and we'll be doing everything we can to help you migrate and export data smoothly. For API builders, some of what you've come to love in Orbit may be available soon on the API Network, so follow Postman channels and we will keep you updated on when things become available. 

Here are some key points:  

• The current Orbit product will be shutting down, and Orbit users have 90 days to wind down their use of Orbit and export their data 
• On May 31 we will stop ingesting new data, but you will still have access to explore and export your data until July 11
• Existing customers will get support during the 90-day period, and customers who prepaid annually will receive prorated refunds
• The Orbit team will be working on the Postman API Network, building new tools to help API publishers grow their developer communities 

💜 Thank you to our community, users, customers, and investors 

Before diving deeper, Josh and I want to thank all of our customers, friends, and investors for collaborating with us over the past four years. We’ve learned tons from you all, and we can’t wait to show you what’s next. 

For more information on what's next, keep reading—and check out the announcement over on the Postman blog. 

An aligned mission 

There are several reasons that my co-founder Josh and I (and our whole team!) are excited to continue our mission at Postman. For one, we both care a lot about helping developers build awesome things. We both had formative experiences working at API-first companies like Keen IO and Algolia, so we have an appreciation for how hard it is to get every aspect of API developer experience right — both the technical elements and the important yet harder-to-define elements like community and developer success.

We have also seen firsthand the challenges of driving adoption for an API, especially when first getting started. In fact, from our very first investor deck, we’ve said that “Software is no longer sold — it’s adopted,” and that “community is the engine that drives adoption.” 

We plan to address both of these areas — community and developer success, and the resulting API adoption — at Postman. 

For example, today, Postman public workspaces have made the onboarding, development, and testing parts—AKA the technical parts—of API DX so much better. Not to mention collaboration, releasing updates, and many other parts of the API development lifecycle.

With Orbit, we know we can help with the other area of DX; let's call it the human-to-human DX. How do we know if an API has good human-to-human DX? A few examples:

• How long it takes to get questions answered
• The quality and authority of the answers
• How informed and supported developers feel they are

These are the kind of questions, and improvements, that Orbit has been helping communities make since we got underway in 2019, via champions programs, support programs, education initiatives, meetups and events, online community management, and various other kinds of community programs out there. 

We’ve helped customers manage tens of millions of community members across their platforms, and now we’re eager to take what we’ve learned, and what we’ve built, and put it in service of the even larger API publisher and developer communities using Postman.

FAQs

What’s happening with the current Orbit product? 

Over the coming months, Orbit technology will be integrated into the Postman API Network, where we’ll be building experiences that help API publishers understand and serve their developer communities across platforms while also helping developers discover great APIs and build relationships with their publishers. 

That said, over the next 90 days, the existing Orbit product and platform will be winding down. As of today, we won’t allow new users or new workspaces to be created. Current users will be able to add users to your existing workspaces, as allowed by your plan type. 

On May 31 we will stop ingesting new data, but you will still have access to explore and export your data.

On July 11, we will disable all functionality.

What will happen to my monthly or annual plan? 

If you have prepaid for an annual subscription, we will reach out to refund the prorated amount left on your current term. If you’re on a monthly plan, we will stop charging you at the end of May, and until then, you can cancel any time. 

How can I export my data?  

There are two options. First, you can export a CSV of all your workspace data in your workspace settings. 

Second, using the Orbit API, you can download all of your workspace data and save it as JSON. Read the API docs here. 

Finally, if you have any questions, please reach out to our team at [email protected].

Thanks again for an exciting few years, and we hope you come along with us for what’s next!