A new survey by Postman sheds light on the upsurge of APIs during the pandemic. The report findings reveal that APIs act as a significant catalyst for digital transformation strategies.
An application programming interface (API) is a software-to-software interface that allows applications to communicate with each other. With API, applications can access data, interact with external software services, and offer richer data insights to a company. The inception of modern web APIs can be traced back to 2000 when American computer scientist, Roy Thomas Fielding, published a dissertationOpens a new window that introduced the concept of REST. It standardized software architecture across the web and enabled components across the web to interact with each other.Â
On February 7, 2000, at the IDG Demo 2000 conference, Salesforce officially launched the first modern web API, followed by e-commerce giants eBay and Amazon. By 2006, Facebook and Twitter had entered the API market that gave developers a treasure trove of user data, including photos, profile information, and contact lists that helped them create products and services for the users.Â
By 2008, APIs had become a critical part of every company’s strategy. A recent survey by MulesoftOpens a new window revealed that 80% of large enterprises generate more than $5 million a year from APIs alone. Companies have started adopting an API-first philosophy to focus on their core competencies while developing innovative products and services for customers.
Postman‘s annual survey, 2020 State of the APIOpens a new window , provides detailed insights into the current situation of the API industry and sheds light on the biggest issues and opportunities in API development. The company surveyed 13,586 API industry members worldwide for three weeks in June and July 2020.
Developers Continue To Be the Backbone of APIs
According to the survey, there is significant diversity in the job role involved with APIs, involving developers (43%), quality engineers (8.5%), technical architects (7%), data engineers (3.5%), and CXOs and VPs (1.4%). The explosion of APIs has made software developers valuable assets for the team. More than 50% of an organization’s development effort is spent on APIs. This was also noted by a RapidAPI Developer surveyOpens a new window back in 2019, which stated that over 91% of developers with 5+ years of experience expect to use APIs more or about the same.Â
The Postman survey revealed that the tech industry had the highest API developers, with 41.7%, followed by business/IT services (19.3%) and banking/finance (10.7%). Notably, the API industry has a larger share of junior developers (74%) than experienced developers (10%). Even though the API industry has younger developers, more than 1,000 internal and external APIs were developed by experienced developers in a year compared to junior developers (0-5 years).
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API Investments Will Remain Steady
APIs have been a critical part of software development. According to ReportLinker researchOpens a new window , the global cloud API market is expected to grow from $435 million in 2019 to $1,425 million by the end of 2025. Since the beginning of 2020, there has been an increased developer and enterprise API adoption. API companies, such as Postman and RapidAPI, have seen a rise in their global developer community and noticed a shift towards the API-first approach model.
Despite a challenging economic environment, Postman’s survey shows that API investments will continue to grow. 45.7% of professionals believe their organizations will invest more time and resources on APIs than 33% who state investments in APIs will remain the same. As more organizations recognize the business value of APIs, the key drivers of the API market will include API integration with internal applications (70%), reduced development time (44%), and operation costs (40%).
Lack of Documentation Is a Major Challenge API Developers Face
API Consumer Challenges
Source: Postman 2020 State of API Report
Despite the booming growth of APIs, developers face various challenges in producing and consuming APIs. One of the biggest obstacles to developing APIs is lack of time (52.3%), followed by a lack of knowledge (36.4%), and a shortage of people (35.1%). This was also revealed in the Smartbear State of API 2019 reportOpens a new window , which found that lack of time and resources due to workload were the biggest obstacles API teams face while ensuring quality.Â
Another key challenge in API consumption was lack of documentation (54.3%), followed by lack of knowledge (36%), and complexity (35%). Lack of documentation has been a pressing issue for API consumers for a long time. The 2019 Postman State of the API ReportOpens a new window showed that 35% of respondents felt that API documentation was below average or not well documented.Â
Similarly, the Smartbear State of API 2019 reportOpens a new window found that while 67% of respondents said they do have formal API documentation in place, only 37% view documentation as a top priority for their organization. Since documentation is a top priority for evaluating APIs, it is imperative that developers invest more time in documenting APIs.
The Postman’s survey respondents shared insights on how to improve API documentation. The report sharedOpens a new window , “The most helpful enhancement API producers can make is to provide better examples in the documentation (66.4%), followed by sample code (62.8%), and standardization (53.0%).â€
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APIs Act as a Catalyst for Digital Transformation
The pandemic was responsible for fast-tracking digital transformation, and APIs played an integral part in helping companies respond to the COVID-19. 85% of professionals said that APIs play a significant role in digital transformation initiatives.Â
Alfrick Opidi, content outreach manager at Rakuten RapidAPI, saidOpens a new window , “APIs hide the complexities and inner details of systems, allowing developers to integrate powerful features without the need for plunging into ground-up development. During the crisis, organizations turned to APIs to transform their processes quickly and reach their customer base faster. In such difficult times, APIs offered the best means of supporting the digital transformation of businesses and ensuring they meet the changing needs of customers.â€
Cynthia Gumbert, chief marketing officer at SmartBear, saidOpens a new window , “Businesses are accelerating digital transformation using APIs at a pace never conceived of just a few months ago while needing to provide even higher quality service to their customers.â€
The Future of API Lies in Microservices
The Future of APIs
Source: Postman 2020 State of API Report
Postman’s survey findings show that developers are most excited about two trending technologies — microservices (48.7%) and Kubernetes (33.4%). In 2020, 65% of SmartBear surveyOpens a new window respondents had revealed that microservices are a driving factor for API growth. In fact, due to increased agility and scalability, there has been a heavy investment and rapid adoption of microservices. Microservices also outperform monolithic systems, another factor that drives developers to shift to microservices.Â
Chris Cooley, co-founder and CPO of KlickTrack, saidOpens a new window , “Microservices are independently maintainable, testable, and deployable. This loose coupling makes them faster and easier to maintain than an app with a monolithic architecture.†Additionally, with microservices, businesses can develop apps much faster than with monolithic architecture, which is another major reason for the surge in the adoption of microservices.
Even though the pandemic slowed businesses across the world, it drove API development to new levels. For years, APIs have empowered companies to make smarter decisions, drive innovation, and enhance customer satisfaction. In the coming years, API adoption will see a major upsurge and play a pivotal role in the digital transformation journey of numerous companies.
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