RapidAPI

rapidapi

From design to deploy, these tools will have your API and microservices up and running in no time. With today’s businesses running a plethora of systems across diverse environments, taking advantage of the modern IT economy lies in an organisations ability to create value via their APIs and microservices.   While the process of building and managing APIs can be simple at its root (particularly with REST, which is extremely lightweight) there are many hidden complications during implementation. For this reason, I've put together this quick guide to make your tasks easier. Linx (for building and publishing an API) Linx is a powerful suite of low-code development software designed for building backend applications quickly. It enables companies to construct new software applications quickly without having to hire an entire team of engineers. Designed for versatility and speed, one of its most robust and useful features is its ability to build web services and host APIs. Instead of needing to write code for many repetitive pieces, Linx provides a full platform for putting together – and hosting – powerful applications that make use of cutting edge technologies available through web services. Linx has 100s of prebuilt functions for building, implementing, and consuming APIs for internally built applications. It has features allow assembling and publishing both REST and SOAP web service endpoints. and can be handled without any specialized coding. If you already have the parameters for the API, you can simply enter them, and drag and drop the modules directly into the Linx Application Designer. Good For (Best Use Case) Creating and consuming APIs can be a time-consuming process. While configuring APIs are relatively easy for developers, they typically need some custom programming. With Linx, you simply drag and drop a module into your designer canvas and set up some configuration. Time saved. If you are working with an application which requires consuming several APIs, the process of integration with external services becomes far more efficient, and can be handled by Business Analysts or IT pros alike with relative ease. Pros/Cons There are very few drawbacks to using Linx for your development processes. Whether you have existing applications that you would like to connect via SOAP or REST, or if you wish to build an entire software suite within Linx, the API functionality will work extremely well for making the connections today to enable your applications to “play well with others.” Linx, however, is not a full API management tool in itself; testing, for instance, should be handled by a third-party application. Pricing Self-hosted Designer IDE: Free Cloud services from $149/month with a developer’s license (1 application) URL https://linx.software See it in action Swagger Editor (for documenting) Swagger editor is a tool which allows you to design and document APIs using a free web-based open-source editor. It is designed solely for creating OpenAPI-based APIs. It provides options to work web-based or in a local environment. Good For (Best Use Case) Well-documented APIs are a necessary aspect of providing them. Creating documentation can be painstaking, however, if people can’t understand how to use your application’s APIs, they simply won’t use them. It’s very helpful for creating easily shareable documentation that can drastically improve the user experience for those attempting to use your APIs. Pros/Cons It provides instant visualization of the documentation as it is being created, and also has a number of customization options. It has some helpful auto-completion tools, and will help create server stubs for APIs in a wide array of programming languages. It does not, however, support hypermedia. Pricing Free – both for download and in the cloud for individuals. Options available for Teams and Enterprises. URL https://editor.swagger.io/ See it in action Postman (for REST testing) Postman is a complete API development testing and environment which can enable creating simple to complex APIs and to verify their functionality prior to building into your applications. You can manually create simple API calls using a straightforward user-friendly interface. Good For (Best Use Case) As ensuring APIs work properly is its own issue, beyond any coding you may need to do, it can be extremely helpful to have an environment where one can verify if payloads are being sent and/or received properly prior to any development work. Pros/Cons Postman provides full integration with existing SDLC methods, ranging from various Agile and Dev/Ops environments to larger waterfall-type organizational models. This makes it well-suited for the professional development process. For this reason, it is regularly used by many software development teams. It is a little memory-intensive, so may run slowly on some computers. Pricing Individuals and Small Teams: Free Enterprise: $18/user monthly (includes advanced features). URL https://www.getpostman.com See it in action SOAPUI (for SOAP and REST testing) SoapUI is a complete API automation testing framework for both REST and SOAP methodologies. Features include API functional testing, performance testing, security, and API mocking, and contains reporting tools for viewing metrics of large-scale API testing procedures. SoapUI has a free open source and professional versions. Good For (Best Use Case) SoapUI is ideal for developers who need to build APIs on a daily basis, and those who are required to manage large sets of connections. It provides the ability to monitor the activity and behaviour of large arrays of APIs with high levels of activity. Pros/Cons SoapUI boasts a wide range of functional testing features as well as many important security features, ranging to alerts from SQL injection to XSS and more. It provides an array of highly useful actionable alerts for any problems that may occur. As it is open-source, developers may modify any of the source code to meet their own needs at any time. It is an advanced tool, so for many users, some pieces may be more complicated than they may be used to. The free trial version does not offer as many of the more user-friendly pieces. Pricing Standard 1-year license: $659. Open Source training and certification: $99 URL https://www.soapui.org/ See it in action https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izA_Xgbj7II Working with APIs may seem complicated, as it requires connecting seemingly unrelated applications and making it possible for them to work together. However, due to evolution from SOAP to REST (and soon, likely GraphQL), the process has gotten considerably easier. The fact that applications use common communication formats like JSON makes it possible for a whole new range of development opportunities. APIs make it possible to create lightweight applications which can easily adapt and traverse the rapidly changing ecosystem of web software. With the right tools, API development and management can become a seamless part of your development process and enable you and your clients to be able to remain agile in today’s competitive environment. Previously published at https://linx.software/6-tools-for-api-design-development-and-testing/

Top Tools for Rapid API Development

Learn how Jed Ng and his team built the world’s largest API marketplace, scaling Rakuten RapidAPI to over 8,000 APIs and 500,000 developers. Davis Baer : What’s your background, and what are you working on? My name is Jed Ng. I work on building and scaling new tech ventures. I’m especially attracted to the ‘0–1’ of creating new market segments. I also work by bridging corporate/startup partnerships. I’m currently the Head of Rakuten RapidAPI- a venture born from a that brought A16Z-backed RapidAPI and $10BN+ eCommerce giant Rakuten together. deal is an API Marketplace. Our mission is to empower software developers to build game-changing applications through web APIs. We’re building a single platform to unify the fragmented Developer experience (DX) when it comes to web APIs. This means connecting their entire user journey- from API discovery to testing, service subscription and payment, management and analytics. Rakuten RapidAPI We’re the world’s largest API Marketplace with over 8000 APIs and 500k developers. Some of the biggest names in the API economy are already on the platform including , and . Microsoft Sendgrid Crunchbase What motivated you to get started with your company? I previously helped establish Ericsson’s cybersecurity practice where our core team booked $15M revenue in our first operating year. This experience taught me how large corporates bring leverage in accelerating new ventures (if correctly set up). I wanted to apply this lever in a startup/corporate model and looked into APIs as an interest area for a potential executive sponsor. My thesis of the API Economy was: Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are incredibly useful things for software development. Their ubiquity in the digital economy (mobile apps, cloud services) proves that. The industry had matured to the point that architecture largely coalesced around REST standard. APIs are useful: was a big source of market friction. The ‘state of the art’ in the API economy today is which solves API discovery but that’s as far as it goes. Large, established tech incumbents command asymmetric API traffic volume, making it hard for new APIs to be successful. New, up and coming API services were lost in a ‘digital ocean’ Digital fragmentation ProgrammableWeb API solutions and IT spend was pouring into lifecycle management and gateway solutions like Apigee, CA Technologies, KONG and IBM Connect. There’s even a Gartner Magic Quadrant covering this segment. These solve the problem of creating and managing internal APIs, but do not help developers discover, connect to and manage public APIs. Persistent market gap: Companies like Twilio, , had spent over a decade proving out API-based business models and had validated APIs as a distribution technology and monetisation model. They were hitting unicorn valuations many times over. They were THE hottest tech brands. This was proliferating a wave of API-based businesses that exacerbating the digital fragmentation problem. Validation: Stripe Nexmo API Traffic Distribution: Pie chart based on Apigee’s State of APIs 2016 report The market gap seemed to revolve around ‘making the market’ between API Providers and Developers via a platform. Such a platform would abstract many of the administrative painpoints such as key management, multiple bill payments and dashboards; simply put, we needed to build the “App store for APIs” Product: Developers needed to be able to able to discover APIs for specific services/functions, test them, purchase and pay for subscriptions, and manage them from a single interface. API selection: Developers need to be able to access a broad selection of web APIs in order to be able to find something for their specific use case or vertical, rather than to have to research and deal with specific API providers separately. There are a few characteristics of this business worth highlighting: As developers spent on platform, they were more likely to find needs for new APIs. As new APIs are added, we’d be able to offer them to existing users. As their applications grew, so would connected API traffic and we’d grow with them. Multiple scaling levers: Absent a platform layer, dealing with multiple APIs from different sources creates administrative pain for developers. They’d have multiple billing accounts, dashboards and interfaces to manage on an ongoing basis. A platform layer solves these pains and creates user stickiness as the number of API connections grew. Platform stickiness: Both API Providers and API consumers are Developers. This is immensely powerful to building network effects, not to mention a unique one. I can think of no other marketplace where the same players exist on both sides of the platform. Same supply and demand players: The crux in multi-sided businesses lies in cracking the network effect problem- typically by subsidizing one side of the business. We solved this by forging an agreement with . This gave us an MVP product, 8000 APIs and 500k Developer users on day 1. RapidAPI Rakuten RapidAPI’s mandate is to bring the API Economy to APAC where 37% of the world’s developer population resides. We’d have home turf advantages of brand awareness, footprint, and operational know how. Rakuten benefitted from a vastly accelerated time-to-market, low cost of entry, and de-risked opportunity. The aspiration is to scale up together in a bid to hit critical mass. This entire process of ideation, navigating a multi-billion corporate, securing endorsement and funding, brokering an agreement and product development took 18 months. KEY LEARNINGS: Corporate/startup partnerships can have extremely long cycles, require immense effort with uncertain payoffs. Play for the >$100MN opportunity; anything less is unlikely to be worth it. The value of a dominant, global API marketplace is at least unicorn scale. Check out by where I talk about this. this article 500 Startups What went into building the initial product? Our MVP was a localized/forked version of RapidAPI’s tech stack with tooling in place for developers to find, test, connect and manage APIs. Our major scope decisions revolved around localization for Japanese users. This involved translation, QA, pricing and currency, and user flow which we completed in 13 weeks. Localization means much more than language. Understanding local user expectations is key. Japan has much higher expectations around quality, even for startups. In addition, “made in Japan” conveys value as well. We reflected this in ways like Yen-based pricing estimates, and adding the Rakuten brand name. In addition, we applied a higher translation standard to API documentation, particularly for top APIs and relied on machine translation for the long tail. The trick is in finding the balance between quality, cost and speed. How have you attracted users and grown your company? Since launch, we’ve focused on growing and scaling inbound traffic which would naturally convert into registrations and API subscriptions. Content generation backed by good keyword research is absolutely crucial. We’ve used a few tricks to maximize impact in our content efforts. We created a content generation machine by defining limited content formats with standard repeatable frameworks that could be executed by freelancers. As we expanded, we created self-organized writing teams that could supervise themselves. We also employed link retargeting within content that created opportunities for ad impressions that drive ~1% CTR. For offline, 3rd-party hackathons have been a great format for getting Developers to interact with the platform. We approach hackathon organizers to provide Rakuten RapidAPI as a perk. This reduces event preparation time, lets us interact with new users each time, and allows us to stack up more events on our calendar. We end up finding a few super fans at each of these events which we’ve spun up into a champion program that covers 3 countries. PRO TIP: Always ask for pre-event webinar and presentations, and speaking slots at kickoff for hackathons. Without them, onboarding Devs who don’t know who you are and who are busy trying to get down to work is nearly impossible. This massively impacts your capture rate. In our first 5 months, we had 30,000 unique site visitors from 110 different countries with a weekly average of 1500. We’re growing traffic at 20% month-over-month and are now turning our attention towards managing the lower parts of the funnel. We also launched Rakuten RapidAPI 2.0 in December 2018. This was a ground-up redesign of our API Marketplace based on the collective experience of us and RapidAPI. Rakuten RapidAPI 2.0 new UI design Besides a cleaner new UI, we introduced a few features: API Collections: Groupings of functionally similar or complementary APIs. This structure functions almost as featured placement slots and let us target long-tail APIs. Performance Metrics: Each API now shows detailed performance statistics including Popularity Score, Latency, and Call Success Rates. This is incredibly meaningful in my view. Since Rakuten RapidAPI is a marketplace, we can be an objective ‘source of truth’ for Developers in deciding which APIs meet their requirements. Better information discovery: We’ve introduced a popover feature in our main discover interface that provides additional information without navigation. API Pages now also show sample code snippets so that Developers can see what they’re getting without having to configure an API call. API Performance metrics The new UI has resulted in >20% bounce rate reduction and the long-tail collections page structure is generating 5–10% additional site traffic. On the other hand, it’s important to share how we could have done better. We spent money to be at general tech events as exhibitors/sponsors. The results range from low returns to abysmal failures. If you’re marketing to Devs, you need to be at developer specific events. Growth hacking was something we should have started earlier as well. For instance, trying out targeted cold emails or webscraping potential users using Facebook groups. Hiring and recruiting has definitely taken longer than expected. The candidate profiles we were seeking- bilingual, risk appetite for startups (a less respected career choice in Japan)- are especially hard to come by. We should have been more aggressive at the start. What’s your business model, and how have you grown your revenue? Our business model is completely based on a platform fee on top of transactions. This comes out of API Providers. The site is completely free for Developers and we offer API services at the same pricing as by going direct to source. They receive access to a massive 8000+ API inventory (and growing), plus all the tooling such as testing, code snippets in multiple languages, single billing and analytics. For API Providers, Rakuten RapidAPI is an additional channel to reach our 500k developer base on day 1. There are no fixed fees for maintenance or listings. We only monetise when developers subscribe to an API plan via our platform. In this way, we align our interests with API Providers and help them monetise on a long-tail audience which they would not typically have access to. What are your goals for the future? Our goals are simply to grow our developer base as quickly as possible. Our combined user footprint with RapidAPI of 500k represents around 2% of the world’s professional developers. There’s a long way to go. We’re also considering how and where to pursue market expansion by building nucleus teams on the ground. We’re also planning to roll out an Hub solution for Enterprises in 2019. The hub functions as an internal API Marketplace that sits on top on existing catalog or gateway solutions so that enterprise developers can consume both internal and public APIs. Public APIs from our external marketplace could be whitelisted for internal consumption. The enterprise would also be able to seamlessly publish their own APIs for would external users for monetisation. We want to get initial customers this year. What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced and obstacles you’ve overcome? If you had to start over, what would you do differently? One of our biggest (and ongoing) tensions is on how much to focus on Japan vs the rest of the world. On the one hand, our team is based in Tokyo and we can engage users more intimately. On the other, there is a far larger English-speaking developer market around the world. Reaching them relies on digital channels which are lower-touch. There are no easy answers and this affects team dimensioning and recruiting. My view is that focusing on Japan only solves Japan and learning to grow and scale digitally is a separate challenge. If success means getting to dominant scale as quickly as possible, that suggests taking the digital route. From a team point of view, building a team of talented professionals with the right mix of language skills has taken longer than expected. In hindsight, we should have started sooner and have been more aggressive with recruiting. Another thing we grapple with is how big the gulf between corporates and startups truly is. It’s a big reason why these sorts of partnerships often fail. This applies in product development and QA standards, time-horizons, agility, user acquisition vs monetisation. We are constantly bridging these differences. PRO TIP: Managing corporate and startup partnerships is all about parties having an equal voice. Having executive sponsors on both sides at equal footing is a great way to surface difficult issues for constructive discussion. Have you found anything particularly helpful or advantageous? In situations of uncertainly, the natural human reaction is to stop and assess. Being able to compel yourself to forge ahead is key to creating opportunity out of chaos. I apply something I call “ ” where I look for a 70% correct solution to a particular problem and move to execution. It’s a good heuristic when things are unclear and chaotic. the 70% rule Look for opportunities that have natural tailwinds or rising tides that will push you forward. In my case, there were 2 tailwinds. Firstly, there was the explosive growth of API-based businesses like Twilio and Stripe as catalysts of new API businesses. Second, there’s a rise in software developers as a user segment. This is manifest in acquisition by Microsoft and $1.1 BN funding round, both of with happened within 4 months of each other in 2018. GitHub GitLab What’s your advice for entrepreneurs who are just starting out? Entrepreneurship is all about execution. Surround yourself with people who are ‘do-ers’. They’re a great way to stay motivated to keep moving forward. Also, don’t be afraid to ask for help from mentors and advisors. People can always say no but you won’t know until you ask. Good mentors- the kind you want to surround yourself with- tend to say ‘yes’ if you approach them correctly. Great resources: Fundraising: course (FREE) Kauffman Fellows Venture Deals Growth hacking: and https://neilpatel.com https://www.producthunt.com/posts/the-bamf-bible-2019 Programming skills: Edx.com Getting found by early tech adopters: producthunt.com Where can we go to learn more? is the world’s largest API marketplace with 8,000+ web APIs and used by over 500,000 developers. We enable developers to build transformative apps through the power of APIs. Find, test and connect to all the APIs you need in one place! Rakuten RapidAPI Check out some of the world’s best APIs including , , and . Microsoft Sendgrid Crunchbase Skyscanner | | Facebook LinkedIn Twitter This interview is brought to you by , a tool to schedule and automatically repeat your posts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google My Business OneUp

Founder Interviews: Jed Ng of Rakuten RapidAPI

15+ Awesome Stuff to Build and Sell With JavaScript (and Friends)

Hey guys! This is the "Getting Started" Guide for the , listed on the . Medium API (Unofficial Version) RapidAPI Platform This REST API , without any hassle. helps you to quickly extract data from Medium Dotcom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc8TKG9EQfE&embedable=true Using our Unofficial Medium Dotcom API, you can get- 's - Info, Articles, Top Articles, Followers, Following, Interests, Lists, Publications User 's - Info, Responses, Content, Markdown, HTML, Fans, Related Articles Article 's - Info, Articles, Newsletter Publication Top Feeds, Latest Posts, Top Writers, Tag Info, Related Tags - Info, Articles, Responses List's - Articles, Publications, Users, Lists, Tags Search 💡 Checkout our for the details on each endpoint! swagger documentation Before getting started, you must first to authenticate your calls. You'll need to , along with the requests, to use the API smoothly. get your API Key pass it in the headers Header - x-rapidapi-key: [RAPIDAPI_KEY] Wondering how to subscribe to our API and get an API Key? Watch the following video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MM1C6mb-mc&embedable=true API's Base URL: https://medium2.p.rapidapi.com GET User ID Every Medium user has one unique hash ID associated with his/her account. Usually, we only deal with usernames that we choose while registering on the Medium Platform. You can find your username in the sub-domain of your profile page URL or at the end of it. Like - https:// username .medium.com https:// medium.com/@ username Once you get your username, like mine is you can use the following endpoint to get your . nishu-jain, user_id Endpoint - GET /user/id_for/{username} Usage - Once you have the , you can invoke other user-related endpoints using it. user_id https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/ac33f3d869ea8a859052fbb98e988385?embedable=true GET User Info Once you've got the , you can use it to get user-related information such as - user_id Full name, Username, Bio, Followers and Following count, Twitter username, Profile-image, top writer status, etc ... Endpoint - GET /user/{user_id} If you don't have the , see the endpoint above. user_id GET User ID Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/c26f5b68a01c5482f5a712e0a652fdd3?embedable=true GET User's Articles This endpoint returns a list of articles ( ) written by the Medium user. article_ids 💡 You can then use the endpoint to retrieve information, such as related to your desired article. GET Article Info title, subtitle, author, claps, voters, tags, topics, publication, etc..., Endpoint - GET /user/{user_id}/articles Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/c0c133d64268a9ef2a4eb62e0408f474?embedable=true GET User's Top Articles This endpoint returns a list of of the top 10 posts/articles on the user's profile (usually in chronological order - most recent posts), for the given user ( ). aritcle_ids user_id 💡 You can then use the endpoint to retrieve information on individual articles. GET Article Info Endpoint - GET /user/{user_id}/top_aritcles Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/c64fb4791441951deeaaac458672879b?embedable=true GET User's Following This endpoint returns a list of of the given user's following. user_ids You can fetch this list and use the endpoint to retrieve information related to the individual users. GET User Info Currently, this list does not contain the of the publications that the user is following. Note: publication_ids Query Parameters : - (Optional) : To limit the number of results. ( <= 1500) count count Endpoint - GET /user/{user_id}/following Usage — https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/7f3d13b52205e5b48a0edba8a8677bfe?embedable=true GET User's Followers This endpoint returns a list of of the followers for the given user. user_ids The length of followers' list might be different from what you get in the Endpoint. It's because, this list doesn't include Medium Users who left the platform. Note: Get User Info If you really need the exact followers' count, use this endpoint to get the followers' list and take its length as the exact followers' count You can use the endpoint to retrieve information related to the individual users. GET User Info Query Parameters : - (Optional) : To limit the number of results. ( <= 1500) count count Endpoint - GET /user/{user_id}/followers Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/66e7ee163f48e426dec93fbded420802?embedable=true GET User's Interests This endpoint returns a list of that the given user follows on Medium. tags All tags are lowercase hyphen-separated strings. Endpoint - GET /user/{user_id}/interests Usage — https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/deb68d4ac20f29fae389bc78d2bab6a4?embedable=true GET User's Lists This endpoint returns an array of created by the user. list_ids You can use the endpoint to retrieve information on individual Medium Lists. GET List Info Endpoint - GET /user/{user_id}/lists Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/42ae06edabb0fc32d8047356b88685ab?embedable=true GET User's Publications This endpoint returns a list of where the user is the editor and/or creator. publication_ids You can use the endpoint to retrieve information on individual publications. GET Publication Info Endpoint - GET /user/{user_id}/publications Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/177663bcaf85d98d3504a6df8889714e?embedable=true GET Article Info This endpoint returns the article-related information such as (as assigned by Medium), Title, Subtitle, Author, Tags, Topics Publication, Published date and time, Clap Count, Voter Count, Word Count, Responses Count, Reading Time, Language, etc... For using this endpoint, you'll need an article's unique hash ID, called . article_id You can find the at the end of any Medium Story's URL. Like - article_id medium.com/towards-artificial-intelligence/.. 67fa62fc1971 nishu-jain.medium.com/the-neutrality-of-dea.. 20abb01e5c85 Endpoint - GET /article/{article_id} Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/3946e149d9b99b00e16fca59845ea2d3?embedable=true GET Article's Content This endpoint returns the textual content of an article/story, for the corresponding . article_id You can get the from the URL, as shown above in the endpoint. article_id GET Article Info Endpoint - GET /article/{article_id}/content Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/d64a3b2a09ad468abc517949379b1c0b?embedable=true GET Article's Markdown This endpoint returns the article content in the markdown format ( ), for the corresponding . .md article_id You can get the from the URL, as shown above in the endpoint. article_id GET Article Info Endpoint - GET /article/{article_id}/markdown Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/a692fc43a7f8a85aa25e358baf0544d6?embedable=true GET Article's HTML This endpoint returns the article in plain HTML format ( ), for the corresponding . .html article_id You can get the from the URL, as shown above in the endpoint. article_id GET Article Info Query Parameter ( ):- Optional Set parameter to to get the full HTML page with head, body, title, and meta tags. If is set to or not provided, the endpoint will only return the HTML inside the body tag. fullpage true fullpage false Endpoint - GET /article/{article_id}/html GET /article/{article_id}/html?fullpage=true Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/7a2ccc872b043fd0113fe418515a8631?embedable=true GET Article's Responses This endpoint returns a list of responses ( , same as ) for a given article ( ) response_ids article_ids article_id You can treat pretty much same as . To see the content of the response, use the endpoint. Note: response_id aritcle_id Get Article's Content Endpoint - GET /article/{article_id}/responses Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/5e7b360bd7e3a03e3035a036a50e22c8?embedable=true GET Article's Fans This endpoint returns a list of of the people who clapped on the article. user_ids You can use the endpoint to retrieve information on individual users. GET User Info Endpoint - GET /article/{article_id}/fans Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/dc15a0310469816a9b0317b975da24a8?embedable=true GET Related Articles This endpoint returns a list of of the related posts. article_ids (Length = 5) If the article is self-published, related posts will belong to the same author. Else, related posts will belong to the publication in which the article is published. Note: Endpoint - GET /article/{article_id}/related Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/8157dcb20427892dfe12d06ef3406217?embedable=true GET Publication ID Every Medium Publication has one unique hash ID associated with it. Usually, we only deal with that is generated when we choose our Publication's Name. You can find your in the homepage URL of your publication. Like - publication_slug publication_slug https:// medium.com / publication_slug Once you get your , you can use the following endpoint to get your . publication_slug publication_id Endpoint - GET /publication/id_for/{publication_slug} Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/dbd1ee3e532789a662f85b54a9449bdc?embedable=true GET Publication Info This endpoint returns publication-related information such as for the corresponding . Publication name, Tagline, Description, Tags, Followers Count, Creator, Editors, Twitter username, Instagram username, Facebook Page name, Logo, Domain, etc ... publication_id A is the unique hash ID associated with every Medium Publication. For example, of is publication_id publication_id TowardsDataScience "7f60cf5620c9". If you don't know the , you can get it from any article published under it. Use the endpoint to retrieve the . Or, if you know the , use the endpoint . publication_id , GET Article Info publication_id publication_slug GET Publication ID Endpoint - GET /publication/{publication_id} Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/e73f4c180b71fed2de9160dff38d25be?embedable=true GET Publication Articles This endpoint returns the list of of the latest 25 articles, posted recently in that publication. articles_ids You can use the endpoint to retrieve information on individual articles. GET Article Info Query Parameter (Optional): - : Use the query parameter to get the articles before that date and time. from from Endpoint - GET /publication/{publication_id}/articles Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/d4ba88bd29cf3482927e77e87ed236d7?embedable=true GET Publication's Newsletter This endpoint returns information related to the associated newsletter for the given publication. This includes their , name, description, creator's id subscriber's count, unique id, image url, etc... Endpoint - GET /publication/{publication_id}/newsletter Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/4ed062ced5c2068cec38567f62d497f4?embedable=true GET Latest Posts This endpoint returns a list of the latest posts ( ) under a topic/niche (as classified and by the Medium platform). article_ids distributed Examples of a topic/niche can be: blockchain artificial-intelligence relationships mental-health, etc ... These are known as . (Not same as ) topic_slugs tags At any given moment, this endpoint will return a list of 25 articles ( ). You can then endpoint to retrieve information related to each article. article_ids GET Article Info Endpoint – GET /latestposts/{topic_slug} Usage – https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/dad4f1382928798b5d2dbfd1fd9c8c38?embedable=true GET Top Writers This endpoint returns a list of top writers ( ) within a particular topic/niche (using ). user_ids topic_slug Examples of are – topic_slug blockchain relationships artificial-intelligence, etc ... You can use an optional query parameter to specify the number of top writers you want to retrieve. count Maximum number of top writers within a topic will be 250. Note: After fetching the , you can use the endpoint to extract information related to the individual users. user_ids GET User Info Endpoint – GET /top_writers/{topic_slug} GET /top_writers/{topic_slug}?count={count} Usage — https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/9217562c854f85a2c949fb497ceb8cbc?embedable=true GET Top Feeds This endpoint returns a list of (default count = 25) for the given and . article_ids tag mode Example of a will tag ‘blockchain', ‘defi', ‘artificial-intelligence', etc... Mode: : For getting trending articles hot : For getting the latest articles new : For getting the best articles of the year top_year : For getting the best articles of the month top_month : For getting the best articles of the week top_week : For getting the best articles of all time top_all_time You can use the endpoint to retrieve information related to each article. Note: GET Article Info Query Parameters ( ): - Optional To get the subsequent top feeds, it can also take a query string parameter called , where, < 250. after after To limit the number of top feeds, use another query string parameter called , where < 25. count count Endpoint - GET /topfeeds/{tag}/{mode} Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/8be504accef43976d161cd0b72c23009?embedable=true Get Tag Info This endpoint returns tag-related information for the given . This includes: tag Tag Name Followers Count Number of stories Number of writers Number of latest stories Number of latest writers are lowercased, hyphen-separated strings representing a category or niche on Medium Platform Note: tags Endpoint - GET /tag/{tag} Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/03c46c14b2e9be11ca61d724dad3694d?embedable=true Get Related Tags This endpoint returns a list of for a given . related_tags tag For the tag , it will return . Example: blockchain "cryptocurrency", "bitcoin", "ethereum", "crypto", "ico", "technology", "defi", "nft", "fintech" Endpoint - GET /related_tags/{tag} Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/6a0628389b1b1b27b9cc893c7c0181f4?embedable=true GET List Info This endpoint returns the Medium's information - such as for the given list-related id, name, author, description, thumbnail image url, creation datetime, last modified datetime, number of articles in the list, claps, voters, and comments - list_id . The is the unique hash ID associated with every Medium List. You can see it at the end of the URL as follows: list_id https:// /list/medium-api- nishu-jain.medium.com 38f9e0f9bea6 Here is the . 38f9e0f9bea6 list_id Endpoint - GET /list/{list_id} Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/f3c985b9626491950f379d25ea0c7e12?embedable=true GET List Articles This endpoint returns an array of present in the given Medium List. article_ids You can use the endpoint to retrieve information on individual articles. GET Article Info Endpoint - GET /list/{list_id}/articles Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/8c5fcebc9b90574209a00fe82651dc8b?embedable=true GET List Responses This endpoint returns an array of for the given Medium List. response_ids You can treat pretty much same as . To see the content of the response, use the endpoint. Note: response_id aritcle_id Get Article's Content Endpoint - GET /list/{list_id}/responses Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/e6668982cef713eff2ac41e95013d442?embedable=true Search Articles This endpoint returns a list of that match the search query. The maximum length of this list will be 1000. If no articles are found that match the search query, then an empty list will be returned. article_ids Query Parameter : - (Required) : A string parameter that specifies the search query for which the articles need to be retrieved. query You can use the endpoint to retrieve information on individual articles. GET Article Info Endpoint - GET /search/articles?query={query} Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/11c71118c79feeb2deea8552c77ca04c?embedable=true Search Publications This endpoint returns a list of that match the search query. The maximum length of this list will be 1000. If no publications are found that match the search query, then an empty list will be returned. publication_ids Query Parameter : - (Required) : A string parameter that specifies the search query for which the publications need to be retrieved. query You can use the endpoint to retrieve information on individual publications. GET Publication Info Endpoint - GET /search/publications?query={query} Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/e24d6a9462175e8df40d11fec1d60a05?embedable=true Search Users This endpoint returns a list of that match the search query. The maximum length of this list will be 1000. If no users are found that match the search query, then an empty list will be returned. user_ids Query Parameter (Required): - : A string parameter that specifies the search query for which the users need to be retrieved. query You can use the endpoint to retrieve information on individual users. GET User Info Endpoint - GET /search/users?query={query} Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/f5e63f8b87fb284d3562390093ac71a5?embedable=true Search Lists This endpoint returns an array of that match the search query. The maximum length of this array will be 1000. If no Medium Lists are found that match the search query, then an empty array will be returned. list_ids Query Parameter (Required): - : A string parameter that specifies the search query for which the Medium Lists need to be retrieved. query You can use the endpoint to retrieve information on individual Medium Lists. GET List Info Endpoint - GET /search/lists?query={query} Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/21a7f30b191462850d236f55afb0fd23?embedable=true Search Tags This endpoint returns a list of that match the search query. The maximum length of this list will be 1000. If no tags are found that match the search query, then an empty list will be returned. tags Query Parameter : - (Required) : A string parameter that specifies the search query for which the tags need to be retrieved. query Endpoint - GET /search/tags?query={query} Usage - https://gist.github.com/weeping-angel/af8db800bc22ad5b226d58d5314a514b?embedable=true Final thoughts As of now, this API consists of 33 endpoints, all of which use the GET method. I'll try to add more endpoints in the future and improve its efficiency to provide you with the best [Unofficial] Medium API possible. You can subscribe to this API here: Medium API - RapidAPI Read its Swagger documentation here: API Documentation And if you're a Python programmer, do . Visit the following link to learn more about Unofficial Medium API's Python SDK. pip install medium-api GitHub - weeping-angel/medium-api If you've any thoughts on it, feel free to share them. I'll appreciate your feedback and try to improve it further. My email ID: nishu@mediumapi.com Thanks for reading and have a wonderful day! We post tutorials, videos, code snippets, and insights related to Medium and Unofficial Medium API. So be sure to follow us on: PS: Twitter: twitter.com/medium_api LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/medium-api Also published . here

Your Official Guide to the Unofficial Medium Dotcom API for Fetching Data

If you’re anything like me, giving gifts is as enjoyable as receiving them (sometimes better!). There are few things as enjoyable as buying a gift for someone that you know they’re gonna love. great But sometimes that can be difficult right? Especially when you don’t have direct contact with the person you’re wanting to give a gift to. And it takes time and energy trying to think about what someone might like. And what’s worse than getting an awful gift? Seeing that undeniable, uncomfortable squirm as the person you’ve just given a present to try’s to sneak out an “It's wonderful”. But it’s clear that it's clearly not wonderful. And that's why I created . It’s a gift idea generation tool that helps you find gift ideas that don’t stink. givemegiftideas.com So… how did I do it? Started with Demand The first thing I always do when I’m scoping out a new idea is check out Ahrefs to see what the demand is like. Why Ahrefs? Well, if people are searching for things, and there is intent behind their search — there is demand. The three main metrics I look for are: Monthly search volume: How many people are looking for the potential thing I want to build? Competitiveness: Is there (realistically) a way I could steal some of that traffic, or is it completely dominated by the big dogs? If it is, I usually niche down a step further. CPC: If it's non-existent ($0), then it most likely means there is no commercial intent behind the searches. Their intent is not commercial, it's informational. If it’s really high ($10+ per click) I steer clear. No way I’ve got the budget to compete in that space. So when the above three are ticked — it likely means there is a market. In the case of my niche: There’s a very healthy volume, There’s some competition, but it’s not insurmountable, There’s a CPC, but it’s not super high. Tick, tick, tick. Checked What Was Ranking Once I knew there was demand, I went into the search results on Google and checked what type of content was actually ranking. What do I mean by what “type” of content? There are broadly two types of content that rank on Google: Editorial content, Programmatic content Editorial content is written (like I’m writing now). Programmatic content is… programmatic. It gives the User a tool to use - to solve their problem that they came to Google with. In my case, it makes sense that the pages that are ranking are programmatic. The User is there to do something. They don’t want to learn something, or read about something (editorial content). So — I needed to build a tool. Building the Tool I have a bias for no-code (because it’s what I know), but the power of no-code tools and AI at the moment is massive. It literally allows anyone to spin up a business in a matter of hours. I’m not exaggerating when I say what’s possible in a few hours now would have taken a team of engineers months to achieve a few years ago. Insane. My idea was simple: Capture data about someone. Enough to get a sense of who they were. Use that data to generate a dynamic prompt using GPT-3’s natural language engine. I nterpret the result and display it using Bubble. Link the result text to a product on Amazon/anywhere. Show the results as a “Comparison” page at the end of the process. Here’s how I did it: 1: Started with GPT-3 in the playground. I played around with a ton of different prompts. I was trying to find a balance of the following: Prompt length: The longer your prompt, the better the model works. The longer your prompt, the more it costs for every API call. Prompt data (inputs): What was the minimum amount of data I needed to give the engine about the gift and the person to get it to give accurate results Prompt output: How did I want the data out so that I could use it and process it downstream. Prompt settings: Tuning the settings like temperature, maximum token length, presence penalty, frequency penalty etc. Capabilities: How much of the discovery of ideas could the engine do for me? (Could it find links and prices to items?) Once I had a model kind of working, I started integrating it into Bubble. 2. Bubble Build I started with the Open AI integration. Luckily, their API is super simple, and getting everything set up was easy. What I had to work out was converting the output of the Open AI request which was 5 lines of raw text all inside one string, into an array of single strings of text. With a bit of javascript help, I got it done pretty quickly! Once I knew: The format of the output data, and The required input data… I started building a front end for the data collection process. How it started: Finishing touches: (There are actually a ton of finishing touches still needed) It’s a super simple flow now. 3: Extending the discovery/search function So what I have now is: A way to generate gift ideas using data prompts, and Display them to the user at the end of the process. What I’d really like is a way to link those gift ideas to actual products available to buy on the interwebs, so that… People can go directly to the product pages and browse their options, and I can hopefully make some affiliate revenue from any sales that result (and pay for the cost of running the app, if nothing else). First — I tried to get it right with GPT-3. It got close! But then I remembered Amazon has a pretty robust Associates API (too bad I don’t have access to it, since I haven’t made any qualifying purchases). Nothing Rapid API can’t fix. I found an Amazon product search API on there, and hooked it up to Bubble to get the three main data points I wanted about a product: Thumbnail image Price URL to Amazon product. I want to transition to the Associates Advertising API as fast as possible because the Rapid API will get super expensive super quickly. Initial Launch I launched/tested the idea just over a week ago in a private entrepreneurial group. Everyone seemed to love it. I didn’t think I’d get much traction, but they obviously shared it with friends and family, and within 7 days I’d ticked over the 10k visits mark. Since then I’ve written about it and shared it organically, each with varying degrees of accuracy. I missed the Christmas “rush” by a week or so - only launching properly around the 20th of December when most thoughtful gift-givers had already made their choices. No matter! Where to then? What’s Next My hope is that through that and some other outreach and more writing, I build enough of a Domain Authority so that I can start capturing organic traffic through Google. Features There’s a ton of stuff still to be done, but because of the above, I can’t afford to work much more on features right now. But here’s what's in the pipeline: Opening up all paths on the app & finishing off. There are a few options unavailable on the “data capture” form of the app. I want to open those all up. What is required is me going and building specific prompts for those specific situations and then modifying the API requests to account for those. Fine-tuning the text-davinci-003 model. The idea recommendations right now are about meh. The model could definitely do with a bit of fine-tuning. This will help on two fronts. First — the tool will get better at it’s job (great product recommendations), and second — I will be able to reduce the size (tokens) of my prompts that generate the ideas, and therefore the cost of each call to the Open AI Completion endpoint. Programmatic pages. Right now, I only have the one page. To capture more search traffic for a wider pool of search keywords I want to create programmatic pages that cater for requests like “Best gifts for girlfriends” or “Best gifts for 10 year old boys”. That would mean creating pages like /gifts/girlfriends and /gifts/10-year-old-boys. Curated collections. To do that… I want to start relying less on GPT-3 generated gift ideas, and more on human-curated lists of ideas. I don’t just want big brands being recommended the whole time. I’d really love to build great local-business focused guides to the best things you can buy in your area. Feedback loops on suggestions. Using User’s 👍🏽 and 👎🏽 to guide how well the prompts are working, and what needs to be adjusted. This will also allow Different entry points. There are definitely more ways to build prompts that will generate gift ideas that are different from my “Characteristics” approach. One I’ve thought of is using a pool of “baseline” suggestions and then asking the user to consistently choose their best of the group until you refine down to a set of great ideas that they love. Saved ideas. Start building my own models for the best gifts in each category and sub-category based on how people interact with my site! Slowly take the responsibility of curation/discovery away from GPT-3 and more to my own recommendations. Amazon Associates API. As soon as I have 3 qualifying sales, I want to replace the Rapid API Amazon product search API with the Associates API. Go direct to local businesses. Start building a way for businesses to list their products and get discovered. Paid and organic. SEO. Mentioned it above, but start focusing on the different types of search traffic and capturing as much of the niche as possible. User-generated suggestions. Allow people who generate great gift ideas to share a portion of the revenue generated from those suggestions. And that’s it! There’s a lot more I could have written about the last week of activities, but I need to go and do some actual work that makes actual money! The Sale All of the above was written just as I launched the product. Since then, 3 things have happened: My application to the Associates API was denied by Amazon (something about not producing original content). I lost the motivation to keep fighting with them about it, and the RapidAPI endpoint that I was using started costing A LOT of money. I decided to list the product for sale so someone with some fresh energy can get it up and running. I also wanted to use Acquire (formerly Micro Acquire) and see what the process was like. At first, I didn’t even think my listing would be verified. It was. Then something surprising happened… People actually started showing some interest. I got about 30-odd signed NDA’s to get access to the information. From that, there were about 5 serious buyers, and the fastest one put in an offer. I’m currently working with him to finalize the sale and finish up a few loose ends. Main Takeaways In case you’ve got this far, these are the main things I learned in the process. API + No-Code Front-End Building products super quick is becoming so easy. The Paas model has become the new Saas. That means all you need is to plug in a few APIs to a frontend and away you go. is my preferred tool to do it. A nice mixture of speed of development and customizability. Bubble Speed of Release I’m a perfectionist, and part of building products like this is actually teaching myself to release imperfect things. And that’s simply because I don’t have the time to make them perfect. Speed of release is so important. I could have waited till all the features I wanted were there, but chances are I would have probably lost motivation before I got them all done… and then never launched. Value in the eye of the holder Just because you don’t see value in something, it doesn’t mean someone else won’t. I never thought anyone would pay a cent for this. I was fully willing to give it away to someone who would like to carry on tinkering. Don’t undervalue the work you do. What you find as simple as making a cup of tea is an insurmountable obstacle for someone else. Thanks for reading!

How I Built (and Sold) an AI-Powered Gift Idea Generator

কিভাবে আমি একটি AI-চালিত উপহার আইডিয়া জেনারেটর তৈরি (এবং বিক্রি) করেছি

Wie ich einen KI-gestützten Geschenkideengenerator gebaut (und verkauft) habe

Cómo construí (y vendí) un generador de ideas de regalos impulsado por IA

Comment j'ai construit (et vendu) un générateur d'idées cadeaux alimenté par l'IA

मैंने एआई-पावर्ड गिफ्ट आइडिया जेनरेटर कैसे बनाया (और बेचा)।

AI を活用したギフト アイデア ジェネレーターをどのように構築 (および販売) したか

AI 기반 선물 아이디어 생성기를 구축하고 판매한 방법

Como construí (e vendi) um gerador de ideias para presentes com tecnologia de IA

Yapay Zeka Destekli Hediye Fikir Oluşturucuyu Nasıl Geliştirdim (ve Sattım)

Cách tôi xây dựng (và bán) một Trình tạo ý tưởng quà tặng do AI cung cấp

我如何构建（和销售）一个人工智能驱动的礼品创意生成器

From HTML to Python, these websites cover a wide range of programming languages and provide interactive, engaging ways to learn. So, get your popcorn ready, sit back, and get ready for a coding journey like no other! You'll be coding up a storm in no time with these websites. 1. HTML - w3Schools What Is HTML? HTML is a markup language used to create and structure content for the web. It uses tags and attributes to define the structure and appearance of text, images, videos, and other types of media that makeup web pages. Web browsers parse HTML documents and render them into visual and interactive web pages. As such, HTML is a fundamental building block of web development and an essential skill for anyone interested in creating web pages or web-based applications. w3Schools offers an easy and interactive way to learn several languages like HTML, HTML5, Python and so much more. Start learning today. 2. CSS - CSS-Tricks What Is CSS? Imagine you're throwing a fancy dress party, and you want your guests to look their best. You've sent out invitations, and everyone's confirmed their attendance, but now you need to make sure your party space looks fabulous too! That's where CSS comes in. CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, is like the fashion designer of the web world. It's the magic ingredient that makes web pages look amazing. CSS is a styling language that web developers use to add color, typography, layout, and other visual effects to HTML documents. With CSS, you can change the appearance of every element on a web page, from the fonts and colors of text to the position and size of images and other media. Learning CSS is a must if you want to create stylish, visually appealing web pages that will impress your users and keep them coming back for more. Learn CSS for free at CSS-tricks 3. JavaScript - LearnJavaScript What Is JavaScript? JavaScript is a programming language that web developers use to add interactivity and dynamic functionality to web pages. With JavaScript, you can create animations, respond to user input, and update the content of a web page on the fly without needing to reload the whole page. Learning JavaScript is a must if you want to create dynamic, engaging web pages that will keep your users coming back for more. Learn JavaScript for free at LearnJavaScript 4. Git, GitHub — LearnGitBranching What Is GIT? Git is a version control system that developers use to track changes to their code over time. With Git, you can keep a record of every change you make to your code, from the smallest typo to the biggest feature update. Moreover, you can collaborate with other developers on the same codebase, without worrying about conflicts or overwriting each other's work. Learning Git is a must if you want to collaborate with others on coding projects, keep track of changes to your code, and ensure that everything runs smoothly. Learn Git for free from LearnGitBranching 5. React — React-tutorial What is React? React is a JavaScript library that web developers use to build user interfaces. With React, you can create reusable components representing different parts of a web page, and then use those components to build complex web applications with ease. For example, imagine you're a movie director, creating a blockbuster film with a huge cast of characters and an epic storyline. But with so many different scenes and elements to manage, how do you keep everything organized and running smoothly? React is like the director of the web world. It's the magic ingredient that makes creating complex web applications a breeze. Learn React for free from React-tutorial 6. API — RapidAPI What Is an API? API stands for "Application Programming Interface," but you can think of it as a digital waiter connecting different applications and services together. It's a set of protocols and tools that allow one application to access the data and functionality of another application without needing to know all the nitty-gritty details of how it works. For example, imagine you're the owner of a food truck serving delicious tacos to a long line of hungry customers. But you're running low on one of your secret ingredients, and you need to get more before your next rush. What do you do? That's where an API comes in! An API is like a secret tunnel connecting your food truck to a network of suppliers and distributors who can get the ingredients you need fast. Learn API for free at RapidAPI 7. SQL - SQLBolt What Is SQL? SQL stands for Structured Query Language, a programming language used for managing and manipulating data in relational databases. It's the language used by database administrators and developers to create, modify, and extract data from databases. Learn SQL from SQLbolt 8. Blockchain - CryptoZombies What Is a Blockchain? Imagine you're at a party, passing around a tray of delicious appetizers. As the tray goes from person to person, you keep an eye on it to make sure everyone gets a fair share. But how can you be sure that nobody sneaks an extra snack when you're not looking? That's where a blockchain comes in! A blockchain is like a digital tray of appetizers that keeps track of who has what, and makes sure nobody can cheat or double-dip. A blockchain is a decentralized digital ledger that records transactions between different parties in a secure and transparent way. Each transaction is recorded as a "block" of data, which is linked to the previous block, creating a chain of blocks, hence the name "blockchain". The information recorded in each block is immutable, meaning that it cannot be altered or deleted without the agreement of the network of users that maintain the blockchain. Conclusion Learning to code is a fantastic way to unleash your creativity, sharpen your problem-solving skills, and open up a world of exciting new possibilities. Here are just a few of the many advantages of learning to code: : Whether you want to create a new app, design a website, or build a robot, coding gives you the power to bring your ideas to life. With just a few lines of code, you can make things happen that would have been impossible just a few years ago. You can build amazing things Coding is about finding creative solutions to complex problems. As you learn to code, you'll develop the ability to break down big problems into smaller, more manageable pieces and innovative ways to solve them. You'll sharpen your problem-solving skills: As the world becomes increasingly digitized, there is a growing demand for people who can code. Whether you're looking to start a new career or advance in your current one, learning to code can help you stand out from the crowd and open up exciting new opportunities. You'll be in high demand: Coding is a creative and intellectually stimulating activity that can be a lot of fun. It's fun: There is a thriving community of coders around the world who are passionate about building amazing things and solving big problems. When you learn to code, you'll have the opportunity to connect with this community, share your ideas, and learn from others. You'll join a vibrant community: Even if you don't plan to pursue a career in coding, learning to code can be a valuable life skill. It can help you think more logically, communicate more clearly, and become more comfortable with technology. It's a valuable life skill: So whether you're a complete beginner or an experienced programmer, there has never been a better time to learn to code. It’s me again with the pizza 🍕 request 😋 . If you're a pizza lover like me and want to support my writing adventures, consider buying me a slice 🍕or two. It'll keep the ideas flowing and the creativity growing! Buy me a pizza

8 Websites Where You Can Learn Coding For Free

And this is according to research from 2020. So, it’s probably even more today. It would be cool if someone did research on how many API-as-a-service companies got founded in the last decade. I’m betting that number is increasing exponentially. 83% of the internet is API! With the of API-as-a-service companies, API-driven platforms and applications, it is essential for organizations to have a simple-to-use, centralized platform/tool in place to monitor and manage these services. rise API-centric and General Monitoring Tools I’ve been looking extensively at API monitoring and tools for the past 2 years and I’ve noticed that many tools are basically, something else first 😅 and then they also have some API-centric metric or (usually) a way to test your APIs through checkpoints from all over the world. Not many differentiators there I must admit. I’ve decided I shall call these ones observability “General Monitoring Tools”. For some of you this is maybe the way to go, depending on your need. However, as I am writing this piece of content my colleague just sent me the news of how 😲😬. Data from 37 million accounts stolen! API increased by a staggering 681% last year alone. T-Mobile got hacked through API data breach attacks I am not trying to bash any of these tools, however, threats to your APIs are real and maybe (just maybe) metrics like uptime and you running your own test isn’t good enough anymore. To actually know that something like this is happening you’ll need a more API-centric tool that can tell you what is actually happening so that you can react faster and on time. So, the first part of my list will have some of the tools that can help you with that since some of them can provide you with real-time API metrics generated by your users. Here are my picks (there are more, so don’t hesitate to ask me for more if need be). 9 API-centric and API Observability Tools/Platforms Some of these are a bit older, but you know what they say: an oldie but a goodie. However, recently some tools emerged answering the call for more observability and transparency. In these “hAPI Hacker” times, it is a good time to consider using one of those. The first 3 tools on this list are more focused on answering this requirement, the rest is still API-centric, but offer more of the traditional things engineers are used to following, like uptime, speed and such. 1. Treblle Treblle is an all-in-one platform for the entire API lifecycle. A very intuitive UI gives value to almost everyone who needs to work with APIs. Advanced API metrics, enriched data at a glance and even a helpful hand to grade your REST API. Auto-detection of endpoints, and real-time API traffic with enriched data points that give you useful metadata about who, how and from where is your API being accessed, auto-generated docs and more. It’s a premium-looking product with accessible pricing for everyone and it’s basically brand new (founded in July 2021). Integration is simple and if you are versed in the language of your choice it shouldn’t take you more than 4-5 minutes to have this puppy up and running with virtually no impact on your API. It has great apps! Treblle is also the only one on this list with super-optimized native apps for iOS, Android and Windows, so you can monitor your APIs and get notified about potential problems on the go. : Treblle has a free forever (no credit card required) account that gives 250K requests that renew every month and they even award you with extra requests if you integrate within 24 hours of signing up. Pricing If you need more, there are also team and enterprise options. A great bonus with apps is that you can run local tests without them being counted as a request from your plan. So, test away as much as you love! 2. Akita Software This is an interesting tool in beta. Similarly to Treblle, it detects your endpoints and proceeds to paint a picture about your API performance from there. You can have your eye on everything that is happening in the dashboard, however, it doesn’t provide you with as many data points and analytics as Treblle does. However, it is in beta, so if you just want to dip your toes in the water of this kind of observability, then this might be a way. If you are serious about API your endpoints, then this is a tool that should enter your consideration. observability and monitoring 3. Moesif Moesif is another API analytics platform that can help you analyze how your API is being used. Features that can help you do this are funnel analysis, web analytics, behavioral emails and behavioral cohorts. Similar to RapidAPI, Moesif also offers a solution for monetizing your APIs. So, analytics come in handy if you are looking to grow and cash in. : Moesif offers a 14-day free trial. As with Treblle, there is no credit card required. You get 30K events for maximum of 1 user on the free options. Pricing 4. API Science API Science is another modern API monitoring tool that understands REST, JSON, OAuth and XML. It works by setting up monitors where you set up your tests. It’s a good tool for trying out different scenarios where the tool lets you test up to every 1 minute from around the world. The user experience is great and the interface is intuitive and easy to understand. What is also great is that API Science is a great tool if you rely on 3rd party APIs. You can easily keep track of any API in your “API supply chain” by setting up custom monitors. : Pricing starts from $20 for a Starter package where you get 30K API calls to work with. The largest plan offers 750K API call for $500. Pricing 5. Assertible Assertible seems to be very straightforward in what it offers. It’s (again) all about testing and making sure your API is delivering. The tool provides you with simple but powerful assertions to test and monitor your websites and APIs. : Similar to Treblle, Assertible also offers a free forever plan. It seems to be going for smaller teams and is currently not aiming at enterprises. Pricing 6. Postman Postman is probably the most recognizable name on this list with over 20M developers actually using the product in one way or the other. The most popular way of using Postman is for API testing, which you can do with their desktop app. The app itself is fine. However, it could be a little bit more optimized for my taste. Other than the most popular way to use Postman the platform itself comes with a set of tools that can cover your API design and API governance needs. There is a free option that comes with core tooling and can be used by up to 3 users, all the way up to enterprise level where the pricing becomes $99 per user. Pricing: 7. RapidAPI RapidAPI is probably the best place to learn a lot about how to use, build and ship APIs at the moment. They own the world’s largest API Hub where you can find, connect and manage APIs. RapidAPI offers a variety of products depending on your needs, however in my opinion they are more suited for larger teams if you are looking for a tool to help you manage your APIs. : RapidAPI does have a free trial. It is not super straightforward on the rest of the pricing model. However, this is the platform where you can actually monetize your API product and I suspect this is where RapidAPI also gets some of its revenue from. Pricing 8. Checkly Checkly is definitely more on the modern side of things when it comes to API monitoring. It still requires some setup to show its full potential, however, it might be worth the time. With Checkly you can automatically collect error traces, screenshots and performance metrics with every browser check you run. : There is a free forever option that gives you a 14-day free trial of team option. Pricing 9. Runescope Runescope is another tool that emphasizes testing and uptime. However, they are.. a bit more API-centric than some of the other tools on this list. Similar to some features on Treblle it can tell you information about the response size, speed and if the return payload was correct. Runescope offers free trial for its plans that start from $79 for 250K requests. Pricing: 11 General Monitoring Tools you can use for more traditional API monitoring These are mostly tools that are not new, with most of them being used by enterprises with big that prefer all of their monitoring requirements in one place. That is of course convenient. DevOps and engineering teams It becomes inconvenient when the same tool simply can’t or doesn’t have the power to show you advanced API statistics that are becoming more and more important. Especially if we are talking . security Nevertheless, these are still note-worthy and quite big and famous tools and platforms. 10. Saucelabs If all you do is test everything, every day, as much as you can, then this might be the sauce you need with your meal. Saucelabs covers much of what you might need like mobile app testing, cross-browser testing,  UI/Visual Testing and of course API testing. There are also options depending on your needs, so you can do continuous testing, automated or live. : For startups and medium teams the pricing starts from $39 up to almost $5K (depending on how many parallel tests you need.) Pricing 11. Sematext Synthetics Sematext offers synthetic monitoring for your APIs and Websites. The key word here is uptime, which is sometimes really the only information you are looking for. So if you need to know info about the availability of your website, APIs and critical web transactions, then this might be a solution to consider. Similarly to API Science, it requires you to set up designated checkpoints that will run the tests you want learnings from. : Pricing page looks a bit complicated, but it seems there is a free option for monitoring, although it is mainly for infrastructure monitoring, not just APIs. Pricing 12. Dotcom-Monitor Dotcom-Monitor is an overall great platform with a little bit of something for everybody. If you are mainly looking to see what is happening with your API, then you’ll look at Dotcom’s Load/Stress Testing solution. This is a real browser-based load testing for websites, web apps, APIs and streaming media. : Dotcom offers a free trial period of 30 days. It’s not super straight forward on what the pricing actually is after that. Pricing 13. DataDog Alongside Postman, probably the most recognizable brand on this list. Both have been around for a while. As a platform, it offers a lot and in enterprise-level DevOps teams is where it probably brings the most value. Can it show deep and enriched data about API requests automatically like say Treblle or can you learn all about APIs like with RapidAPI? Probably not! However, the main strong argument for DataDog is the centralization of everything that needs to be monitored, including APIs. It just depends on how much data is enough for your team to be efficient. : I am not even going to try to get into this. There are however free trials for whatever you might want to try out. Pricing 14. Better Uptime This is mainly an monitoring tool. It does check your API among other things (hence the name). It has an interesting approach to how it logs errors on an API. It records the response message and basically screenshots the webpage. This could be helpful to someone, however, there are tools that can tell you more actionable details. infrastructure : There is a free forever option that gives you 10 monitors and 5 status pages and it also has enterprise solutions ready. Pricing 15. Prometheus Prometheus is an open-sourced monitoring solution, usually used alongside Grafana (a little bit further down the list). It’s a very specific tool with a lot of integration options, so depending on your needs it might be worth your time to take a look. Integration time might be an issue if you need some information fast. Integrating this kind of solution usually takes up time, and on top of that, there will most probably be a on how to actually use it. learning curve 16. Graphite This is a very interesting solution that on top of getting valuable information for you, also allows you to get it in graph visuals for your website. I wouldn’t say this is the way to go if you are serious about API monitoring, but if you just need some simple and fast data that you can show, then Graphite might be a fun tool to use. 17. Uptrends Uptrends is another tool that gives you a solution for uptime, , web performance and API monitoring. When it comes to API monitoring, with Uptrends you can build out multi-step monitoring and run tests from 231 global checkpoints. web app : There is a 30-day free trial with no limitations, after which you can choose the plan that suites you the most, starting from $17.5/month Pricing 18. App Dynamics This Cisco product is advertised as full-stack observability for apps. Although it does bring some interesting solutions, and it does visualize infrastructure performance, I’d say in terms of monitoring APIs, it is similar to most tools. However, if you are a part of an app development team, this tool might be an interesting one to consider. The website gives you the option to get a quote, so I don’t have a disclosed price range, unfortunately. Pricing: 19. ReadMe ReadMe is primarily a tool that helps you with your API docs by essentially turning the into interactive developer hubs. However, among other features, they also have API metrics that can help your developers understand what is happening with the API. : On a free plan you get 1M API logs, which sounds great, however it is restricted to one project. If you want more, you’ll need to refer to one of the paid plans, starting from $99. Pricing 20. Grafana Grafana is too big not to be mentioned. Although Grafana offers a lot of possibilities and integrations, to me it also looks like a trap. It takes forever to integrate and requires continuous setup and learning, figuring out how to get what you want and so on. Big companies stick to the software even if it doesn’t cover all of their needs because of all of the work that went into setting it up in the first place. : This will depend on how and what you’ll use so it stands to reason that there isn’t any straight forward pricing for Grafana. Pricing 21. Open Telemetry OT is essentially a of APIs, SDKs and tools that you can use to get data you are interested in (like API metrics). It is free and , so if you are up to the task of finding what works best for you and you have a way to visualize the data, then maybe Open Telemetry is a way to go. collection open source Wrap Up So there you have it folks. Like I said at the start, there are more tools out there, and if you think it’s worth your time and resources you can always try to build something instead of taking something off the shelf. However, most of the things on the list have a free trial, and some come with free forever plans, so I would recommend trying some of those before you decide to commit to building. If you are already using something, 2023 might be a good year to make a switch to tools that will ensure your security and provide you with advanced observability which can position you ahead of your competitors. Whatever you decide, stay hAPI!

21 API Monitoring Tools That Will Make You a Developer Superhero in 2023!

Requesting and receiving data from internet sources is one of the basics of programming but isn’t taught  by most ‘Learn to Code <Programming Language>’ courses. For self-taught programmers, this is one of the skills that will get you moving further along your learning journey and make you better than 90% of the others. What is an API? Short for Application Programming Interface, API helps a program fetch information from various internet sources. Let’s say you’re building a basic currency conversion program in python. It takes an input amount of currency X and converts it into currency Y Sample Code for reference: def currency_converter ():

    currency_a = input ("Enter the currency you want to convert: ")

    currency_b = input ("Enter the currency you want to convert to: ")

    amount = float (input ("Enter the amount you want to convert: "))

    exchange_rate = float (input ("Enter the exchange rate: "))

    print(f"{amount} {currency_a} is equal to \
        {amount * exchange_rate} {currency_b}")
    
currency_converter () This program in its current form is no more than a glorified calculator - not of much use as a program. This is where APIs come in!! With a few lines of code, this program can be made so powerful that it does not need to ask for the exchange rate. Instead, with APIs, the code would be able to fetch the current exchange rate and provide it to the program. Need to make a program to give the country code for an input country? There’s an API for that. Inventory in your warehouse? Data in your spreadsheet? Payment confirmation? Email notification? All done with APIs! To put it simply, APIs enable communications between computing devices in a standardized manner. For example, if you go to Germany and use an interpreter to help translate for you, the interpreter is the API. Components of an API . An API has 3 elements - Request, Response, and Resource Request - You asking the interpreter to say ‘Good Day’ to a German is the request Response - What the German said back is the response Resource - The data within the response (‘Guten Tag’) is the resource In our program above, let’s see what the API needs to do: """

Request -- Our program requests for the currency_a -> currency_b exchange rate

Response -- API endpoint reads our request, fetches that information, and responds back

Resource -- The exchange rate data sent back is the resource

""" API Endpoint? What’s that? As we know by now (as self-taught programmers) that computers need very precise inputs in a very precise manner. Any deviation or any expectation from the computer to ‘understand things as we do’ is just going to lead to chaos! In that vein, we must understand that even API requests need to be structured in a very precise way. This is what the general structure of an API looks like: -- This is the URL that receives the API Endpoint Request. -- This is the type of API request and is of several types such as: Method GET -- indicates that the request is looking to fetch info from the server. POST -- indicates that the request is looking to send some info to a server. DELETE -- indicates that the request is looking to delete some info from the server. PUT/PATCH -- indicates that the request is looking to update existing info on the server. -- This provides some context about the Requested. Header Resource -- This is the main part of the request that triggers the Body Response. CRUD Responses CRUD stands for Create, Read, Update, and Delete and is performed by using the relevant API method in the API Request: API Method Response Description GET Read fetches existing info from the server POST Create adds info to the server DELETE Delete deletes info on the server PUT/PATCH Update updates info on the server Fetching Realtime Currency Rates into our Program Now we’re sufficiently ready to fetch the real-time currency rates into our sample program given earlier. We’ll be using the requests module for this exercise which you can get via pip3 install requests in your code editor’s (like VSCode) terminal. APIs that provide data come in Free and Paid forms - depending on the ease of use. I found a free source and shall be using it because it does not force me to sign up as long as I’m just testing here. ExchangeRateAPI API data usually comes in the form of a JSON (very similar to a dictionary in python) for easy interpretation by the programmers fetching that data. Here’s the code for fetching the current price of the US Dollar via the API. import requests
url =  "https://open.er-api.com/v6/latest/USD"
r = requests.get(url)
data = r.json()
print (data) Running this code will output the following: {'result': 'success', 
'provider': 'https://www.exchangerate-api.com', 
'documentation': 'https://www.exchangerate-api.com/docs/free', 
'terms_of_use': 'https://www.exchangerate-api.com/terms', 
'time_last_update_unix': 1666828952, 
'time_last_update_utc': 'Thu, 27 Oct 2022 00:02:32 +0000', 
'time_next_update_unix': 1666916222, 
'time_next_update_utc': 'Fri, 28 Oct 2022 00:17:02 +0000', 
'time_eol_unix': 0, 
'base_code': 'USD', 
'rates': {'USD': 1, 'AED': 3.6725, 'AFN': 87.825832, 'ALL': 118.121569, 
'AMD': 400.945057, 'ANG': 1.79, 'AOA': 469.341287, 'ARS': 155.541325, 'AUD': 1.541873,
 'AWG': 1.79, 'AZN': 1.703727, 'BAM': 1.945846, 'BBD': 2, 'BDT': 101.652423, 
'BGN': 1.946569, 'BHD': 0.376, 'BIF': 2061.89311, 'BMD': 1, 'BND': 1.40599, 
'BOB': 6.931975, 'BRL': 5.314395, 'BSD': 1, 'BTN': 81.988812, 'BWP': 13.376498, 
'BYN': 2.887549, 'BZD': 2, 'CAD': 1.355432, 'CDF': 2080.191892, 'CHF': 0.986916, 
'CLP': 967.707002, 'CNY': 7.181598, 'COP': 4992.818412, 'CRC': 624.374829, 'CUP': 24, 
'CVE': 109.702113, 'CZK': 24.428037, 'DJF': 177.721, 'DKK': 7.422296, 'DOP': 53.948303,
 'DZD': 140.691654, 'EGP': 19.734057, 'ERN': 15, 'ETB': 53.10939, 'EUR': 0.994984, 
'FJD': 2.280573, 'FKP': 0.862476, 'FOK': 7.422296, 'GBP': 0.862495, 'GEL': 2.780813, 
'GGP': 0.862476, 'GHS': 14.477856, 'GIP': 0.862476, 'GMD': 60.196663, 
'GNF': 8658.722933, 'GTQ': 7.851475, 'GYD': 210.222337, 'HKD': 7.848858, 
'HNL': 24.756699, 'HRK': 7.496037, 'HTG': 127.760311, 'HUF': 407.402111, 
'IDR': 15518.182729, 'ILS': 3.502567, 'IMP': 0.862476, 'INR': 81.991335, 
'IQD': 1466.589463, 'IRR': 42121.422024, 'ISK': 142.934149, 'JEP': 0.862476, 
'JMD': 153.171604, 'JOD': 0.709, 'JPY': 146.478104, 'KES': 121.814832, 
'KGS': 83.278965, 'KHR': 4159.804229, 'KID': 1.541816, 'KMF': 489.456326, 
'KRW': 1414.443423, 'KWD': 0.29963, 'KYD': 0.833333, 'KZT': 470.670656, 
'LAK': 17297.850805, 'LBP': 1507.5, 'LKR': 362.205766, 'LRD': 154.022883, 
'LSL': 17.964161, 'LYD': 5.043916, 'MAD': 10.860577, 'MDL': 19.373927, 
'MGA': 4262.390442, 'MKD': 61.999441, 'MMK': 2425.598271, 'MNT': 3414.010756, 
'MOP': 8.084315, 'MRU': 38.145372, 'MUR': 43.95057, 'MVR': 15.474793, 
'MWK': 1033.698319, 'MXN': 19.911183, 'MYR': 4.709804, 'MZN': 64.481751, 
'NAD': 17.964161, 'NGN': 437.991325, 'NIO': 36.062907, 'NOK': 10.27411, 
'NPR': 131.1821, 'NZD': 1.717982, 'OMR': 0.384497, 'PAB': 1, 'PEN': 3.994793, 
'PGK': 3.535979, 'PHP': 58.319524, 'PKR': 220.984121, 'PLN': 4.728217, 
'PYG': 7249.701869, 'QAR': 3.64, 'RON': 4.844272, 'RSD': 116.906933, 
'RUB': 61.346183, 'RWF': 1075.383068, 'SAR': 3.75, 'SBD': 8.07199, 'SCR': 13.126076, 
'SDG': 572.688874, 'SEK': 10.875131, 'SGD': 1.405948, 'SHP': 0.862476, 
'SLE': 17.636956, 'SLL': 17636.95595, 'SOS': 571.245973, 'SRD': 29.467417, 
'SSP': 611.916602, 'STN': 24.374931, 'SYP': 2514.92413, 'SZL': 17.964161, 
'THB': 37.747911, 'TJS': 10.200292, 'TMT': 3.504191, 'TND': 3.085688, 
'TOP': 2.388017, 'TRY': 18.607129, 'TTD': 6.77608, 'TVD': 1.541816, 
'TWD': 32.049926, 'TZS': 2335.14976, 'UAH': 37.234725, 'UGX': 3826.845217, 
'UYU': 41.283595, 'UZS': 11139.838897, 'VES': 8.4508, 'VND': 24821.263771, 
'VUV': 122.039898, 'WST': 2.787278, 'XAF': 652.608434, 'XCD': 2.7, 'XDR': 0.774448, 
'XOF': 652.608434, 'XPF': 118.722827, 'YER': 251.106608, 'ZAR': 17.964381, 
'ZMW': 16.127703, 'ZWL': 644.87339}} Looking at this JSON (Imma call it a dictionary from hereon for pythonic reasons), we see that the currency rates against that of the USD as base currency are given in the internal dictionary which can be accessed with the key. rates The actual conversion rate to a particular currency can be accessed by using the desired currency’s 3-letter currency code. For example, to get the conversion rate to INR (Indian Rupee), I will first need to use the key and then the key within the key. rates INR rates Case-sensitivity is important in most APIs so we’ll need to plan for that in our code as well. The code to get the USD to INR conversion rate, the code in python would look like this - inr_rate = data['rates'].get('INR', 'Not Found') Let’s now update our original code to become less of a calculator and more of a computer: import requests

def currency_converter ():
    currency_a = input ("Enter the currency you want to convert: ")
    currency_a = currency_a.upper() 
    #accepts user input for base currency name and converts it to uppercase
    
    currency_b = input ("Enter the currency you want to convert to: ")
    currency_b = currency_b.upper() 
    #accepts user input for final currency name and converts it to uppercase
    
    currency_converter_api = "https://open.er-api.com/v6/latest/" + currency_a
    #makes currency_a the base currency
    
    api_response = requests.get(currency_converter_api)
    #fetches the api response - the R from CRUD
    
    api_response_json = api_response.json()
    #Converts the response object into a JSON object
    
    amount_to_convert = float (input (f"Enter the amount of {currency_a} \
      you want to convert to {currency_b}: "))
    #accepts user input for the amount to convert as a float
    
    try:
        exchange_rate = api_response_json['rates'].get(currency_b, \
          'Currency Not Supported by API')

        if exchange_rate == 'Currency Not Supported by API':

            print ("Final Currency Not Supported by API")

        else:

            converted_amount = amount_to_convert * exchange_rate

            print (f"{amount_to_convert} {currency_a} is \
              equal to {converted_amount} {currency_b}")
    
    except KeyError:
        print ("Base Currency Not Supported by API")
    # for catching errors is the base currency name is not supported by the API
    
currency_converter () There you go - now it does a little better: Converting 5000 INR to EUR (successful conversion calculation): """
Enter the currency you want to convert: inr
Enter the currency you want to convert to: eur
Enter the amount of INR you want to convert to EUR: 5000
5000.0 INR is equal to 60.72 EUR
""" Converting unsupported currency (error-handling): """
Enter the currency you want to convert: utsav
Enter the currency you want to convert to: inr
Enter the amount of UTSAV you want to convert to INR: 45
Base Currency Not Supported by API
""" Converting TO Unsupported currency (error-handling): """
Enter the currency you want to convert: inr
Enter the currency you want to convert to: utsav
Enter the amount of INR you want to convert to UTSAV: 89
Final Currency Not Supported by API
""" Some Final Notes: While we've used print statements here for illustrative reasons, if you’re building an app, avoid print statements and use return instead Some premium APIs (paid) offer better sources, the ability to take full-name inputs (Indian Rupee) or just country as input (USA) and respond with the desired response Most APIs require the use of API keys for authentication and DDoS prevention features. Read more about them . here Resource Attributions: RapidAPI #API on HackerNoon Recommended Readings: Low Code APIs Error-Handling in React APIs Using Google Sheets API in Python Securing your API data GraphQL API

API for Beginners: Requests, Responses, Resources, and GET Explained with Code

As its name suggests, a third-party API is a particular application that links features from many programs. It is given to you by a third party to allow you to access their data or software features on your website or application, typically (but not always) major businesses. It can be useful for many firms that don't yet have the funding to develop their intricate functionalities. Startups that have established using the Best-designed APIs This can be seen, for instance, when a ride-hailing app, like Uber, incorporates the ability to track rides using Google Maps' Map capability. Uber saves time using a third-party API rather than developing map functionality from scratch. Some well-known and new startups below may not have existed without the APIs. ButterCMS Jake Lumetta established ButterCMS on January 1st, 2014. Regardless of their tech stack, developers may add a content management system and blog engine to their contemporary online apps thanks to this headless CMS. The headless CMS separates your content from the website's front end by delivering it as data through API. For your marketing team to add or update the website content without requiring engineers to modify the code base, Butter offers an intuitive dashboard for managing your content. Even better, the CMS's straightforward content API and plug-and-play Python SDK enable smooth integration with new and pre-existing Python projects. SproutSocial You could mention any social management applications here when looking for programs that largely rely on social APIs: Buffer, Hootsuite, SocialBro, SproutSocial, and others. In one of their blog posts, SproutSocial made it clear that they couldn't survive without APIs. The majority of these apps all share the ability to let users accomplish things that the API provider does not. Instagram When Instagram first launched, it had a highly distinctive filter system. But with imitations appearing everywhere, Instagram sought to gain a competitive advantage. Instagram's willingness to accept APIs is one factor in its success. As an illustration, Instagram makes use of the Foursquare API to offer location tagging. Before it was implemented, Instagram users cried out for the ability to tag locations, and using the Foursquare API was a quick and efficient method to make it happen. Factors to ponder before choosing third-party APIs Although many entrepreneurs find useful and powerful tools, you should exercise caution when selecting your supplier. third-party API integration services Make sure your provider is reliable before putting your startup at risk because you are essentially placing your company's security in their hands. Here are five factors to consider while selecting the best third-party API. Search for a high-quality documentation When choosing an API, pay close attention to the documentation and choose a vendor who offers thorough descriptions of their API as well as instructions for integrating and using it. Proper documentation should cover cost, implementation specifications, and constraints to prevent unpleasant surprises for your development team or your business before and after the integration. Testing When your application uses a third-party API, you should handle it as if it were your own. You should make sure it offers the answer you require, include it in your sprint test plans, have a strategy for notifying clients when your supplier is unavailable, and have a backup plan. Learn everything about pricing The pricing structure for APIs can occasionally be unclear, and many organizations find themselves paying more for specific API usage they weren't aware of. Learn every nuance of your API's price logic, predict your costs, and contrast them with your real spending to avoid this. If the estimate is significantly off, get in touch with your API provider and learn more about your current price tier. FAQs What is a well-designed API? An efficient API design will typically contain the following features: Simple to read and use: A well-designed API will be simple to use, and developers who frequently use it can rapidly recall its resources and related activities. What are the 3 most common APIs? REST, RPC, and SOAP are the three major categories of API protocols or architectures used today. These might be referred to as "formats," each with distinctive properties and trade-offs for various objectives. REST. The method of creating APIs that is likely the most well-liked is the representational state transfer (REST) architecture. How do I get Netflix API? Contact Netflix's Twitter account at @netflix if you require API support. API Key and OAuth 1 authentication are necessary for the Netflix API. The RapidAPI marketplace does not yet offer the Netflix API. To request access to this API, simply click "Request this API on RapidAPI." Is Python good for REST API? Python is a good place for new programmers to start. Since its debut in 1991, Python has grown and been supported by several frameworks for building web applications, doing scientific and mathematical computations, and creating graphical user interfaces for the most recent REST API frameworks. Which technology is best for API development? Postman. It is most likely the most widely used tool for REST API testing. According to their website, 130 million APIs are accessed each month by 5 million developers and more than 100,000 enterprises using Postman. Additionally, it has a tonne of features and supports the entire REST API life cycle. Bottom line Working with entails assuming not just their benefits and advantages but also their drawbacks and unethical behaviors. third-party API integration services For the success of your business and your clients, you must choose an API you can rely on and trust. Overall, many startups put more reliance on third-party APIs. Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to argue that the above apps and websites would not exist without APIs, at least not in the current form.

Top Startups With the Best Designed Third-Party APIs

TL;DR ✨ We'll learn how to build a custom Google Maps marker using any React component. 💅 We'll learn how to create animation and user interaction with our custom marker. 🚀 We'll discuss how to avoid compilation error during build time in Next.js. I was curious about making . markers on Google Maps like Airbnb These markers pack much more functionalities than the default markers from Google Maps. Besides custom styling, each marker displays dynamic pricing and . When you interact with them, you'll see custom React components rendered with data. states I find it very fun and useful so let's unpack it together! We'll be building a proof of concept to create customer markers using any React component. Let's go. Setting up The Project The demo is . Feel free to fork it🚀 available on GitHub I integrated the Google Maps API in a project by following the . The tutorial explains in detail how to render Google Maps and markers in React applications. Next.js official tutorial There are a few more integrations included in the project: : to fetch hotel listings as our dataset. RapidAPI - Priceline com Provider : to provide css styles. Tailwind CSS : to apply animations on React components. Framer Motion The default marker from Google Maps looks like this: Customizing Markers Using Google Maps Overlay Google Maps API offers an to place DOM elements on the map. We can use the to place the container of a on the map and render a custom react component into the container. OverlayView class OverlayView React Portal Following , we'll implement the three basic methods: the official tutorial to create a custom Overlay class : to append our portal container to the target . onAdd pane : to position the container. draw : to remove the container from the DOM. onRemove Overlay.ts export class Overlay extends google.maps.OverlayView {
  container: HTMLElement
  pane: keyof google.maps.MapPanes
  position: google.maps.LatLng | google.maps.LatLngLiteral

  constructor(
    container: HTMLElement,
    pane: keyof google.maps.MapPanes,
    position: google.maps.LatLng | google.maps.LatLngLiteral
  ) {
    super()
    this.container = container
    this.pane = pane
    this.position = position
  }

  onAdd(): void {
    const pane = this.getPanes()?.[this.pane]
    pane?.appendChild(this.container)
  }

  draw(): void {
    const projection = this.getProjection()
    const point = projection.fromLatLngToDivPixel(this.position)

    if (point === null) {
      return
    }

    this.container.style.transform = `translate(${point.x}px, ${point.y}px)`
  }

  onRemove(): void {
    if (this.container.parentNode !== null) {
      this.container.parentNode.removeChild(this.container)
    }
  }
} Connecting Google Maps and React Now that we have our custom class, we can create a React component to: Overlay create a container, instantiate class, Overlay add the overlay into the map instance, and create a React portal to render components in the container. OverlayView.tsx import { PropsWithChildren, useEffect, useMemo } from 'react'
import { createPortal } from 'react-dom'
import { Overlay } from './Overlay'

type OverlayProps = PropsWithChildren<{
  position: google.maps.LatLng | google.maps.LatLngLiteral
  pane?: keyof google.maps.MapPanes
  map: google.maps.Map
  zIndex?: number
}>

export default function OverlayView({
  position,
  pane = 'floatPane',
  map,
  zIndex,
  children,
}: OverlayProps) {
  const container = useMemo(() => {
    const div = document.createElement('div')
    div.style.position = 'absolute'
    return div
  }, [])

  const overlay = useMemo(() => {
    return new Overlay(container, pane, position)
  }, [container, pane, position])

  useEffect(() => {
    overlay?.setMap(map)
    return () => overlay?.setMap(null)
  }, [map, overlay])

  // to move the container to the foreground and background
  useEffect(() => {
    container.style.zIndex = `${zIndex}`
  }, [zIndex, container])

  return createPortal(children, container)
} Let's create a marker using the component and a button. OverlayView CustomMarker.tsx import { useMemo } from "react";
import { Hotel } from "../../types/hotel";
import OverlayView from "../OverlayView";

interface CustomMarkerProps {
  hotel: Hotel;
  map?: google.maps.Map;
}

export default function CustomMarker({
  hotel,
  map,
}: CustomMarkerProps) {
  const price = useMemo(() => {
    return `$ ${hotel.ratesSummary.minPrice.replace(/\.(.*?\d*)/g, '')}`
  }, [hotel])

  return (
    <>
      {map && (
        <OverlayView
          position={{
            lat: hotel.location.latitude as number,
            lng: hotel.location.longitude as number,
          }}
          map={map}
          styles={{
            backgorundColor: 'DarkGray',
            color: 'white',
          }}
        >
          {/* use a button as the marker */}
          <button onClick={handleClick}>{price}</button>
        </OverlayView>
      )}
    </>
  )
} Resolving Error in Next.js If you've started your dev server or tried to build the project, you might see a saying : Reference Error "google is not defined" This is because Webpack doesn't recognize "google" at build time. At build time, Google Maps JavaScript API is not yet loaded so Webpack is not able to evaluate the class at the module level. What we can do is to wrap the class in a to resolve the build error. Overlay factory function Overlay.ts export function createOverlay(
  container: HTMLElement,
  pane: keyof google.maps.MapPanes,
  position: google.maps.LatLng | google.maps.LatLngLiteral
) {
  class Overlay extends google.maps.OverlayView {
    container: HTMLElement
    pane: keyof google.maps.MapPanes
    position: google.maps.LatLng | google.maps.LatLngLiteral

    constructor(
      container: HTMLElement,
      pane: keyof google.maps.MapPanes,
      position: google.maps.LatLng | google.maps.LatLngLiteral
    ) {
      super()
      this.container = container
      this.pane = pane
      this.position = position
    }

    onAdd(): void {
      const pane = this.getPanes()?.[this.pane]
      pane?.appendChild(this.container)
    }

    draw(): void {
      const projection = this.getProjection()
      const point = projection.fromLatLngToDivPixel(this.position)

      if (point === null) {
        return
      }

      this.container.style.transform = `translate(${point.x}px, ${point.y}px)`
    }

    onRemove(): void {
      if (this.container.parentNode !== null) {
        this.container.parentNode.removeChild(this.container)
      }
    }
  }
  return new Overlay(container, pane, position)
} Let's refactor the component accordingly: OverlayView OverlayView.tsx - import { Overlay } from './Overlay'
+ import { createOverlay } from './Overlay'

export default function OverlayView({
  position,
  pane = 'floatPane',
  map,
  zIndex,
  children,
}: OverlayProps) {

  const overlay = useMemo(() => {
-   return new Overlay(container, pane, position)
+   return createOverlay(container, pane, position)
  }, [container, pane, position])

} Now we should be able to see our map again and our custom markers without error! Adding Animations and User Interactions Since our custom markers are React components, we can define the user experience and use the available tooling in the React ecosystem. Let's implement: a soft animation to transition the marker's appearance, and a click event handler to toggle the button state and a card component that displays hotel details. CustomMarker.tsx import { useCallback, useMemo } from 'react'
import { Hotel } from '../../types/hotel'
import OverlayView from '../OverlayView'
import { motion } from 'framer-motion'

interface CustomMarkerProps {
  hotel: Hotel
  map?: google.maps.Map
  onClick: (payload: Hotel) => void
  highlight?: boolean
}

export default function CustomMarker({
  hotel,
  map,
  onClick,
  highlight,
}: CustomMarkerProps) {
  const price = useMemo(() => {
    return `$ ${hotel.ratesSummary.minPrice.replace(/\.(.*?\d*)/g, '')}`
  }, [hotel])

  const handleClick = useCallback(() => {
    onClick(hotel)
  }, [onClick, hotel])

  return (
    <>
      {map && (
        <OverlayView
          position={{
            lat: hotel.location.latitude as number,
            lng: hotel.location.longitude as number,
          }}
          map={map}
          // when users select it, move the marker to the foreground
          zIndex={highlight ? 99 : 0}
        >
          {/* appearance transition */}
          <motion.div
            initial={{ opacity: 0 }}
            animate={{ opacity: 1 }}
            exit={{ opacity: 0 }}
            transition={{
              type: 'spring',
              stiffness: 400,
              damping: 20,
              delay: Math.random() * 0.3,
            }}
          >
            <button
              onClick={handleClick}
              // button state toggle
              styles={{
                backgorundColor: highlight ? 'white' : 'DarkGray',
                color: highlight ? 'black' : 'white',
              }}
            >
              {price}
            </button>
          </motion.div>
        </OverlayView>
      )}
    </>
  )
} The animation looks like this: The button state toggle and the card toggle are also in place: Final Thoughts It looks like a lot of code to create a custom marker but the mental model is actually straightforward: We render a DOM element as the container in the map through an overlay instance. In the overlay, we can position the container at the right place on the map. The container is also the destination of a React portal. When a React marker component is ready to render, we portal the component to the container in the map. References Website: Adding a Map and Markers to a React Application Website: Google Maps JavaScript API - Markers Website: Google Maps JavaScript API - Custom Markers Website: Google Maps JavaScript API - OverlayView class Website: Google Maps JavaScript API - Custom Overlays Website: Google Maps JavaScript API - MapPanes interface Website: Airbnb Website: Designing States for Buttons & UI Interactions - Adobe XD Ideas Website: Framer Motion Website: React Portals Website: Next.js Website: RapidAPI - Priceline com Provider Website: Factory Pattern - patterns GitHub: Google Maps JavaScript API React Wrapper GitHub: react-google-maps-marker-demo This post is originally posted on . Daw-Chih’s website

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