I have listed few topics/techs/languages/tools here which is must use/learn resources for API developers. All the below listed were useful based on my experience and my tech mates recommendations and these were also identified considering cost, ease of use, speed to market.

  1. API Design
    1. OpenAPI – Swagger
    2. RAML – Mulesoft
  2. API Development & Design IDE
    1. Visual Studio Code for design and development.
    2. Atom for design.
    3. Sublime Text for design.
    4. Stoplight – for design.
  3. API Documentation
    1. Swagger – open api documentation.
    2. Mulesoft – RAML documentation.
    3. Redoc – auto generate documentation from openapi specification.
  4. API Test tools
    1. SOAPUI – SOAPI and REST services and Automation.
    2. Postman – REST services and Automation.
    3. Insomnia – REST services.
    4. Visual Studio Code – REST Client – VSO inline tool for REST calls.
    5. Apache JMeter – Load/Performance Testing.
  5. API Mock tools
    1. Mockoon desktop app, expose port for mock services, only configuration required.
    2. Prism, Stoplight – NodeJS
    3. Json-Server – NodeJS
  6. API Type/Technologies/Patterns
    1. SOAP over XML
    2. REST
    3. Microservices
    4. GraphQL
    5. gRPC
  7. API Implementation Language/Framework
    1. ASP.NET Core
    2. Java – Spring Boot
    3. Python
      1. Flask RESTful
      2. Django Rest Framework
    4. NodeJS with express
    5. PHP
      1. Laravel
      2. Lumen
      3. Limonade
  8. API Cache
    1. API Properties for Caching
    2. Redis
    3. MemCache
    4. Couchbase
    5. MongoDB
    6. ElasticCache
  9. API Authentication
    1. Basic – base64 encoded (username:password)
    2. API Key – Key to identify the invoking system.
    3. OAuth or openid – Recommended Approach (Owin in dotnet framework and IdentityServer)
  10. API Gateway
    1. Apache Camel – Open source integration framework.
    2. NodeJS – Express – can achieve few gateway features (throttling, rate limiting, IP whitlisting) for smaller applications
    3. Express-Gateway – Open source gateway for microservice application with nodejs and express JS.
    4. Ocelot – only open source gateway in dotnet core, recommended only for smaller applications
    5. KrackenD – high performance open source gateway, no programming experience required, declarative way to create endpoints.
    6. Tyk – open source gateway
    7. Mulesoft – Enterprise Level
    8. AWS API Gateway – Enterprise Level
  11. API Metrics
    1. Uptime – Pingdom
    2. CPU Usage and Memory Usage – Task Manager on Windows and Zabbix
    3. TPS – Transactions per Second – Hystrix
    4. Fault Tolerance & Circuit Breaker – Hystrix, Polly Project
    5. Latency/Throughput – Usually measured during load/performance Testing – Apache JMeter
  12. API Analysis & Monitoring
    1. APM Tools – App Dynamics, New Relic, DynaTrace, SolarWinds, Application Insights, AWS CloudWatch
    2. Splunk Cloud – Log Aggregation, Detailed Analysis, Alerts, Dashboards
    3. Grafana – Integrates with API logs from IIS for graphical analysis
    4. Kibana – log analysis platform.
    5. Promotheus – monitoring solution based on logs.
  13. API Cloud Hosting
    1. DigitalOcean
    2. Netlify
    3. Heroku
    4. AWS
    5. Google Cloud
    6. Microsoft Azure

Techmates

Basil Harrison – API Designer and Analyst – https://www.linkedin.com/in/basil-harrison-26b95152/

Nitin Tripathi – API Designer and Analyst – https://www.linkedin.com/in/nitin-tripathi-b197207/

Santosh Nayak – Solution Architect – https://www.linkedin.com/in/santosh-nayak-a9793b11/

Rafeeq – Web Architect – https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpmrafeeq/

Nevin Perumana – Web Architect – https://www.linkedin.com/in/nevinjp/

Please feel free to leave a comment if you think this post was helpful to you or you want to share your views or tools/techs which might be useful for others. i would definitely have a look for sure.