An API works as the communication block in a client-server architecture. Whenever the client needs data, it requests the API to fetch it from the server. The API packs the bag and starts its quick travel to the server. When it reaches, the server takes the client message from the API, processes it accordingly, and requests the API to take back a response. Everything will go wrong if we remove the API, including but not limited to user authentication and authorization, data sovereignty, data consistency, etc.
The backend engineers ensure everything is up-to-mark and build secure APIs. They are not only developing APIs but building server architecture. So there is a chance of human error that can lead to bugs and unhandled edge cases, which can make the API response inconsistent. This is one scenario.
Companies like IP Geolocation are monetizing a bunch of their APIs. On top of their product, the geolocation API, they had to develop an entire infrastructure to monetize their APIs, handle the rate-limiting, authentication, analytics, and more. It will be difficult for an ordinary developer who has a good API and wants to make money off of it to build all this from scratch.
What we need is an API management tool that can potentially help us manage all of our APIs in a single place, a platform that provides monetization capabilities out of the box, a place where we can create alerts, talk with our API consumers, and do so much more. This is where RapidAPI Provider comes into the picture.
What is RapidAPI Provider?
RapidAPI offers six products to its users. One of them is an API management platform called RapidAPI Provider. It was developed to make the API developers' lives easier than before. It is full of exciting features that help developers implement things like API authentication, rate-limiting, generating alerts, sending announcements, creating API versions, monitoring analytics, and so much more.
Once you have signed up, you will be redirected to RapidAPI Hub. From there, you will need to click on My APIs from the top right corner of the navigation bar, and it will take you to RapidAPI Provider Dashboard.
Why Should You Use RapidAPI Provider for Your APIs?
RapidAPI Provider is full of features that are extremely useful and easy to use. It provides a fast, simple, and intuitive user interface that you can use to create API endpoints and query parameters easily. It can automatically create interactive documentation, so your users can test your API right inside their browsers. It also provides different features to make your API secure alongside detailed API analytics.
You can also easily handle your API monetization using RapidAPI Provider. It has built-in payment gateways that take care of all the billings while you focus on delivering the best API performance to your customers.
RapidAPI Provider Dashboard
This is where you need to be if you want to manage your APIs or make money through them. This dashboard provides you with everything you need. On the left side, you will see there is a sidebar that has four options:
Add New API Payment Settings Support My APIs
Let’s look at each of the options in detail.
Add New API
You can add new APIs on the RapidAPI Hub from here. Initially, you would need to give the API a name, and a short description, along with selecting the category it falls into, for instance, sports, data, etc.
RapidAPI supports all kinds of APIs from REST to GraphQL and Kafka. After adding the above details, you can select your API specification. All the fields are required, so make sure you fill out all of them. Once you are done, click on the Add API button. It will create the API and put it under My APIs from the left sidebar.
All the APIs you create are initially private. You have to make them public if you want everyone to use them.
Payment Settings
I have mentioned that you can monetize your APIs and earn money from them several times. You can put your APIs on RapidAPI Hub. You can use the RapidAPI Provider to manage them and get payouts. Currently, it supports PayPal as a secure payment system, so you would need to sign up on PayPal and integrate it here to cash out.
Support
Someone may want to reach out to you regarding your API. All these messages appear under the support section of RapidAPI Provider. You can filter them based on a particular API.
My APIs
RapidAPI Provider is one place for managing all your APIs. The My APIs option from the sidebar does not open a view on the left side like the above three options. Instead, it lists down all the APIs that you have created. You can work on one of them and switch to the next API. Everything is super simple and intuitive.
RapidAPI Provider Features
Let’s discuss some of the features of RapidAPI Provider to give you a better idea of what you are getting out of it.
1. Threat Protection Against Injection Attacks
Your API needs to be secure so that no one can infiltrate your server. If you have not added a validation layer to your API, anyone would be able to send any kind of information. This will result in attacks like SQL or JavaScript injections.
RapidAPI Provider provides a threat protection feature that can automatically compare the paths, parameters, header, and body of all requests against predefined RegEx patterns and blocks matching requests from reaching the servers. This way, even if you do not have query or request body validations on your API, RapidAPI Provider will add them and protect your API and server.
2. Request Schema Validation
According to the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP), one of the significant API security vulnerabilities is the mass assignment, where the API developer stores the incoming client’s data into the database without any kind of filtering or checks. This happens due because the API developer did not add schema validation. This vulnerability can be potentially harmful if the hackers add additional data to the API request, which modifies the existing properties.
With RapidAPI Provider, you get API request schema validation out of the box. You can go to the security section of your API and enable it from there. Once you do, you will see three options:
- Passthrough everything (default)
- Strip and passthrough
- Block
The first one is the default behavior, where if the request contains a header or query parameter not defined in the API specification, the request will not be blocked.
The second will pass the request but strip the headers or query parameters not defined in the API specification.
The last one will block the request if it contains anything not defined in the API specification.
3. Adding a limit to request size
Sometimes, your API accepts a file as a request data. The file can be an image, PDF, word document, etc., and its size can vary. If your API user sends a huge file, it can become difficult to process it. To handle this, you should set the request size limit to ensure the performance of your API.
You can set the request size limit using RapidAPI Provider to manage your API. It can be in kilobytes (KBs) or megabytes (MBs). This will limit your users from sending files larger than the set limit.
4. Setting Proxy timeout
RapidAPI Provider also allows you to configure the proxy timeout settings for your API. All you need is to set the time in seconds, after which the timeout will occur. The maximum value you can set is 180 seconds or 3 minutes.
5. Create API Plans
API is a product. You can create a unique API or build one on an existing concept but make it better than anyone else’s API and sell it to different users. If you use RapidAPI Provider to manage your API, you can also create multiple API plans. These plans will give your API user more flexibility in terms of spending money.
You can create different plans by clicking on your API's Plans and Pricing section inside the RapidAPI Provider dashboard. You will see multiple options to create Basic, Pro, Ultra, and Mega plans here. Once you are done, all the plans will automatically appear on your API page.
6. Add API Documentation
You should always document your API so your users can refer to it in case they run into an issue. RapidAPI Provider provides you with a simple way to easily write API documentation. Just head over to the Docs section of your API inside the RapidAPI Provider dashboard. Here, you will see a text area where you can write content and preview it to see how it will look.
If you want to learn how to document your API, this is the piece you wish to read.
7. Support for multiple API definitions
You can use RapidAPI Provider to create different types of APIs, for instance, RESTful, GraphQL, Kafka, etc. It provides you with everything you would need, from giving you the way to define base URLs to endpoints.
8. Example API Response
To improve the quality of your API, you should show your users what the response will look like before they have called the API. This way, they will know whether your API solves their problem or not and also figure out the appropriate way to handle the response.
With RapidAPI Provider, when you create endpoints, you have the option to define an example API response for that particular endpoint. It will show up on your API on RapidAPI Hub.
We have written a detailed piece explaining 22 different features RapidAPI provide its users in 2022. I would highly recommend you take a look at it if you want to know more about managing your APIs better than before.
How To Add API on RapidAPI Hub Using RapidAPI Provider?
Let’s go ahead and use RapidAPI Provider to publish an API on RapidAPI Hub. I have already found a dog facts API for the sake of this piece.
→ STEP #1
First, you must ensure you are signed in to your RapidAPI account.
→ STEP #2
Now click on My APIs at the top. It will take you to the RapidAPI Provider dashboard. Click on the Add New API option from the sidebar and add the API details like its name, description, category, etc.
Once you are done, click on the Add API button. It will create the API and put it under My APIs from the sidebar.
→ STEP #3
Click on the Definition under your API on the sidebar. You will see different fields here related to adding a long description, an image to represent your API, the API's website, and whether you want to add the terms and conditions. Fill in all the details and then click on Save.
→ STEP #4
Now click on Add a base URL at the top for adding the API base URL. It will change the UI where you will have the Configure button under the Base URL category. Go ahead and click on it. It will open a popup where you have an input box to add the base URL of your API.
→ STEP #5
Once you are done, click on Add some endpoints at the top. It will change the page. Now click on Create REST Endpoint.
Fill in all the required information like the endpoint's name, a brief description, the HTTP method used with the endpoint, and the endpoint itself.
I have also added an example response so the users can see what they will get from the API without needing to call it first.
Once you are done, click on the Save button. It will create the API endpoint for your API.
→ STEP #6
If the API you are adding is an internal API of your company, you would want to keep it private. In this case, you need to invite your company developers to your API. They will be able to view the API page and request it. But if you want the API to be publicly available on the RapidAPI Hub, click on Make your API public at the top and toggle the switch under the API Visibility section to make the API public.
Now scroll to the top of the page. Click on the View in Hub. It will take you to RapidAPI Hub, where you can see what your API looks like.
Wrap Up
There you have it, folks! RapidAPI Provider is a product of RapidAPI that provides you with everything you need to easily manage not only one, or two, but an unlimited number of APIs in a single place. It is simple to use and contains everything from securing the API to adding example responses. Now go ahead and try it out yourself.