As we enter 2023, APIs continue to be the foundation of software development, providing data and services to an ever-expanding world of applications. The API industry is constantly evolving, and it's crucial to stay up-to-date with the latest trends. Here are six key API trends to watch out for in 2023.
Rapid gathered the perspectives of 2200 developers from over 130 countries in the State of APIs survey. The survey reports that 68.5% of developers expect to rely more on APIs in 2023, which means that the API economy will continue to grow in the future. Let’s take a look at the key API trends for 2023.
More APIs As Products
API-as-a-Product is like the Software-as-a-Service model, but APIs take center stage here. More and more businesses are offering APIs as products to monetize the services they expose through the APIs. The number of organizations monetizing APIs increased by 15 percent in the last year, and it will continue to grow in 2023.
It is a growing economy, and if you want to jump on the API as a product trend, now is the right time to do it. Rapid's API Hub is by far the biggest platform where you can monetize and grow your API products. Listing your APIs on Rapid will put it in front of over 3 million developers while you manage them efficiently in the Provider Dashboard.
Rise In Partner And Third-Party APIs
Expect a noticeable growth in the usage of partner-facing and third-party APIs in 2023. This trend directly relates to the increase in API products, as more companies are using external APIs to abstract everything from authentication and geolocation to payments. It also offers new opportunities in the API economy and encourages organizations of all sizes to participate in it.
Developer Experience As The Prime Focus
The focus on developer experience (DX) continues to rise in importance. It goes without saying that developers are the end-users and consumers of APIs, so developer experience (DX) is equivalent to user experience (UX) in the context of APIs.
The API space is getting more competitive with time, and companies are looking for a way to stand out from the competition by providing a good developer experience. Unlike the previous years, today, developers are much more empowered in making business decisions. So, the decision to adopt a particular API is ultimately made by a developer.
We can not ignore the emphasis on developer experience because a seamless developer experience is one of the best ways to stand out in the API market. It involves a developer-friendly API design, easy onboarding, reusability, and tackling other developer problems. Take a look at the 23 Developer Problems Solved by Rapid in 2023 to see how Rapid is helping API providers to improve their DX.
Newer API Architectures Grow
Rest APIs remain the most popular, but their usage has somewhat declined as newer architectures like GraphQL, AsyncAPI, and gRPC are growing in terms of familiarity and use.
The shape of APIs is changing as companies like Shopify, eBay, etc., start using the next generation of APIs in the form of GraphQL, AsyncAPI, and gRPC in production. However, instead of replacing REST APIs, we foresee a trend where a combination of REST with the other new architectures is used to maximize efficiency.
AI/ML Comes To APIs
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) continue to slide into the API industry, and outcomes are nothing short of amazing. Technologies like computer vision, facial recognition, data extraction, and natural language processing provide market-dominating features and vastly improve the user experience. However, setting them up is not simple, and not every organization can afford a dedicated AI division.
AI and ML APIs solve this complexity and allow companies to abstract advanced AI/ML features through APIs. Just like a regular API, these APIs can be integrated into applications without regard to implementation and computing powers.
Due to the never-ending list of benefits, the AI/ML API market is only expected to grow in the future. If you are interested, you can explore some awesome AI/ML APIs on Rapid's API Hub and see what they are capable of achieving. You can also check out this text sentiment analysis app we built using an API.
The Modern API Stack
In recent years, the software industry has undergone a significant shift in how companies work, resulting in a demand for a Modern API Stack. APIs, or Application Programming Interfaces, are the backbone of modern software applications, providing a way for different systems to communicate and share data with each other. As software applications have become more complex and interconnected, the number of API requests has increased exponentially, necessitating a scalable and reliable solution to handle the increased traffic.
To meet this demand, a modern API stack must support the latest technologies and standards such as REST and GraphQL. Representational State Transfer (REST) is a popular architectural style for designing web APIs that emphasizes a standardized way of accessing resources through HTTP requests. GraphQL, on the other hand, is a query language for APIs that allows clients to request only the data they need and reduces the number of API requests.
Moreover, the deployment structure of modern software applications has shifted from private cloud to containerization with Docker and Kubernetes. Containers are a lightweight and portable way to package and deploy software applications, while Kubernetes provides a scalable and reliable way to manage containers in a production environment.
To meet the demands of modern software development, a modern API stack must support containerization and provide easy integration with Kubernetes. This allows software companies to deploy and manage their API stack with ease and scalability, ensuring that their APIs are always available and responsive.
Final Thoughts
The crux of this guide is that more companies are utilizing APIs more than ever before. Companies need to adapt to these changing trends to stay ahead of the curve in the API economy. Rapid is the next-generation API platform with a full suite of tools that will help you dominate the booming API industry.