The concept of an API may be the most useful in the world of web application development. To define it, we can refer to what was stated in an article by BBVA API Market “An API facilitates the exchange of messages or data. A set of functions and procedures that a library provides for use by other software as an abstraction layer, a space for accessing and exchanging additional information on top. Thus, one uses the information of the other while remaining independent”.
To put these words in a simple way and exemplify what an API can do, we can see its processes reflected in everyday moments of real-life: when a waiter takes your order in a restaurant, he takes it to the cook to prepare it and then you bring your dish ready, register on a site or make a purchase through an application like Facebook.
Most used APIs for web application development
Among web application developers, these are the most popular APIs:
Skyscanner Flight Search
We start with the most popular API. Skyscanner is a search engine that allows developers to integrate travel data about flights, hotels, car rentals, and much more into their applications. This API groups all this data and thus the user does not have to visit several websites or use different applications to access this information.
You can separate the information that you present in your application, for example, allowing the user to access the cheapest flights, search for the routes that best suit them to build their itinerary, and more. This API is free to access for anyone who needs it.
Open Weather Map
It is a service that works online, offering the user the possibility of integrating the weather forecast of multiple cities around the world into their application, ideal for applications that offer GPS or information about cities and countries for tourists.
The information is available to you: current weather information, daily forecast, weekly weather forecast, and search for the weather of a specific city by name.
It is the most popular RESTful API to get information about the king of sports: soccer. Covers more than 300 major and minor leagues around the world. Get live scores, pre-match forecasts, team line-ups, stats from the latest matches, and much more.
It is not a free API, which would be its only drawback. It has a free version, but it only allows you 50 requests per day. The mega version, at $39 per month, allows more than 150,000 requests per day, making it the most convenient for an application.
An ideal API for any application aimed at chefs or cocktail enthusiasts. It provides the developer with a database that includes thousands of drinks and cocktails from around the world. It is free to use and is not for commercial purposes.
It allows you to search for cocktails by category, type of glass (for example, cocktails in flute glasses or cocktails in small glasses), ingredients, alcoholic or non-alcoholic, and more.
It is a RESTful API that provides you with data about all the countries in the world. It was recently acquired by apilayer and will continue to be free for all developers who need it in their various applications.
Owned by Yahoo, this API allows developers to integrate news from the world of finance, as well as online tools for personal financial management, into their applications. It is one of the most popular to obtain data on the world of the economy.
It allows you to: obtain a summary, movements in accounts, relevant information on specific actions of the stock market, and view tables that include periods of change, comparisons, and more.
Ideal for chats or applications, Love Calculator is an API that allows the user to calculate the compatibility between him and the person he likes, just by placing the names of both. Simply, they must enter the names of both, either the person they like or their partner and the API will calculate the percentage of compatibility between them.
As the name suggests, it's an API that simply converts URLs into short links, free to use, just paste the link and it's short.
These are the most used APIs in 2022, as reported by the specialized portal RapidAPI, which was in charge of conducting a survey among thousands of application developers and came up with these results.
At Rootstack, our team of experts has used several APIs to integrate them into the different applications we have made for our international clients, thus achieving a robust application, full of various functionalities that can satisfy the demands of today's users.
Do you need an expert who can provide your company with a good mobile application or a site where your customers and users can go to learn more about your products? Do not hesitate to talk to us, we are willing to offer you the best minds in the world of software development and thus provide solutions to the technological problems that your company presents.
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