There are several ways to extend a business model but API is a hot topic right now as the online world is expanding very fast. If you’re a developer or at least interacted with APIs before, you probably know why public APIs are so important, but there’s a big chance you didn’t hear or care about them before and now you’re wondering why everyone talks about them.

What is an API

In computer programming, an application programming interface (API) is a set of subroutine definitions, protocols, and tools for building application software. In general terms, it’s a set of clearly defined methods of communication between various software components. (Wikipedia)

There is a simple way of saying this: an API is like a contract between two computer software agreeing to share information in a more or less standardised way.

Now it’s pretty clear what are we talking about, but why are them so important? How can APIs help us? In the following rows I will try to argument some good reasons.

Getting Started with Building APIs in Symfony2

Grow your business

You can grow your online business by integrating with additional tools or apps and engaging with others. This can be done using public APIs.

Let’s take Uber and Google Maps: everytime you search directions in Google Maps (from home to work, i.e.) you can automatically request an Uber, see your driver on the map or even contact him, all without having to leave Maps app thanks to Uber’s API.

Or if you have an online store, you might wanna offer public APIs so other apps can request price offers and display your products on their platforms.

Get ready for scaling

It’s all sweet and fun to start a new business and you probably want to do it faster and cost effective. Usually this means a monolithic application.

Success means scaling and this can be done by breaking the app into microservices. This will enable multiple options for you.

Let’s say you have a microservice that is being used very often and affects your server. That microservice can be moved on a new server with dedicated resources only for it and it will be accessible for the rest of the app via an API.

Or there is the case when you want to rewrite a single microservice (some languages are more efficient than others). This is the beauty of standardised API – you only have to make sure you accept the same API call as before and return the answer in the same format, so other dependent services won’t be affected.

Time saving

UX/UI is very important and we strongly advise you to continue to invest in that area, but there are cases when having to explore an UI for some actions is time consuming for some (more technical) users.

Let’s take SendGrid and their Marketing Campaigns app. You can create a new campaign by going through the UI process or you can simply make a call to their API. Second option is usually faster (but for more technical people or at least you need to develop an integration first) and the flow will always be the same, while UI can suffer some modifications over the time.

Mobile app

At some point you will probably want to add a dedicated mobile app to your business. Having APIs makes it possible. You are free to develop a new design or a new template without any changes on the API side.

Providing APIs must be a concern for every company, whether they focus on internal operations, partner integrations or public access. Join the revolution! Add API support to your product! Get a free quote now.