APIs play a vital role in ensuring seamless integration between systems. However, they can be prone to security issues and cyberattacks. AWS AppSync offers fully managed GraphQL API setup, administration, and maintenance, with high-availability serverless infrastructure built-in. You pay only for what you use with no minimum fees or mandatory service usage.

Developers will need rights and licenses for these APIs to access. There is no public availability but can be shared with specific business partners to provide additional revenue without compromising quality. APIs may seem very technical, but they are more common and play a bigger role today than ever before. They allow us to share and partake in practical business functionality between devices, applications, and people. Travel booking websites like Skyscanner and Booking.com use web APIs to aggregate customer flight and destination data. You can instantly confirm the availability of a hotel room and the length of your stay in real time by exchanging your requests and data with the hotel.

Create an Enterprise API Marketplace

REST API is a special type of Web API that uses the standard architectural style explained above. ATTOM is the premier provider of property and real estate data. ATTOM’s leading Property Data application program interface (also known as an API) consolidates property and neighborhood data, offering a comprehensive look at 99% of the American population. To find out more about ATTOM Data Solutions’ pricing, please reach out to one of our data experts.

Developers typically use Web APIs to query a server for a specific set of data from that server. For instance, REST API enables the Zomato app to display the restaurant’s location on Google Maps. The synergy between apps through API integration paves the way for innovation and better customer api explanation service. The type of API you use will depend on your specific use case and the requirements of the application. Now that we have answered the questions of ‘what does an API mean’ and what does an API do,’ let’s move forward and learn how it can add value to modern-day businesses.

What does API Stand For? A Definition of the Coding Acronym in Plain English.

Hence, they were limited to the systems on which they were operated. APIs’ primary purpose was to pass messages from one mainframe to another. It took about 30 years for APIs to evolve beyond the local environment. By 2000, APIs had gained immense popularity and had become integral to advanced data integration. No restrictions to being able to access these types of APIs, while being publicly available. These can be used by anyone with little to no authorization and cost, allowing third parties to develop apps that can interact with your API.

Financial institutions also rely on APIs to facilitate their customers’ transactions, and healthcare providers use APIs to manage patient data and keep it secure. Microservices are an architectural style that structures an application as a collection of small, independent, and loosely coupled services. Each microservice is designed to perform a specific business function and can communicate with other microservices through lightweight protocols, such as HTTP or messaging systems.