HTTP API Development Tools

Introduction

This is a collection of useful resources for building RESTful HTTP+JSON APIs. There are a lot of good tools and entire ecosystems out there! It can be overwhelming not knowing what options are available, so you can use this as a reference starting point.

Contributions are most welcome. Categories are also open to suggestions!

API Specification Languages
API Specification Tools
API Specifications
API Frameworks
API Client Development Tools
API Documentation
API Clients
API Debugging and Mocking
API Design Guides
API Publishing
API Gateways
API Security
API Monitoring
API Testing
API Developer Portal
JSON Format Standards
Learning Resources
Blogs
References

API Specification Languages

API Specification Tools

Swagger Inspector: Test and auto-generate OpenAPI documentation for any API.
Swagger Editor: An editor for designing Swagger specifications.
Swagger Tools and Integrations: A list of libraries and frameworks serving the Swagger ecosystem.
OpenAPI extension for VS Code: Visual Studio Code (VS Code) extension that provides support for the OpenAPI Specification.
OpenAPI plugin for JetBrains IDEs: Jetbrains plugin that provides support for the OpenAPI Specification.
Dredd: Validate API documentation written in API Blueprint against its backend implementation.
API Spec Converter: Convert between different API spec formats.
Apimatic: Supports API description formats including Swagger, OAI format, RAML, API Blueprint, IO Docs, WADL, Postman Collections and HAR 1.4 and more
Sandbox: Quick and easy mock RESTful API from API definitions
Restunited: Generate SDK, Documentation with Testing and Debugging
OpenAPI Definition Designer: Free visual OpenAPI3 definition creation and editing tool.
Stoplight Studio: Create, prototype, and share OpenAPI descriptions and JSON Schemas using a visual editor.

API Specifications

API Commons: A repository of language-agnostic API specifications / Data Models.
APIS.guru: Directory of API specs in OpenAPI(aka Swagger) 2.0 format.
AnyAPI: Documentation and Test Consoles for Public APIs.

API Frameworks

Ruby

rails-api: Rails for API only applications.
pliny: Opinionated template Sinatra app for writing APIs in Ruby.
grape: An opinionated micro-framework for creating REST-like APIs in Ruby.
ActiveModel::Serializer: Brings convention over configuration to your JSON generation.
rabl: Generate JSON and XML from any ruby object.
jbuilder: Create JSON structures via a Builder-style DSL.
roar: Parse and render REST API documents using representers.

Python

Django REST framework: Toolkit that makes it easy to build Web APIs.
Tastypie: Webservice API framework for Django.
restless: A lightweight REST miniframework for Python.
flask-restful: Simple framework for creating REST APIs.
Falcon: Falcon is a low-level, high-performance Python framework for building HTTP APIs, app backends, and higher-level frameworks.
Connexion: Swagger/OpenAPI First framework for Python on top of Flask with automatic endpoint validation and OAuth2 support
apistar: A smart Web API framework, designed for Python3.
sanic: Sanic is a Flask-like Python 3.5+ web server that's written to go fast.
hug: hug aims to make developing Python driven APIs as simple as possible, but no simpler.
FastAPI: FastAPI is a modern, fast (high-performance), web framework for building APIs with Python 3.6+ based on standard Python type hints.

Javascript

hapi.js: Web and services application framework for Node.js.
Restify: Node.js REST framework specifically meant for web service APIs.
Express: Fast, unopinionated, minimalist web framework for Node.js.
sailsjs: Realtime MVC Framework for Node.js.
Actionhero: Multi-transport Node.js API server with integrated cluster capabilities and delayed tasks.
Baucis: To build
Koa: Next generation web framework for Node.js
Loopback: Node.js framework for creating APIs and easily connecting to backend data sources.
Seneca: A microservices toolkit for Node.js.
Feathers: Build RESTful and real-time APIs through Socket.io or Primus.
Deployd: Deployd is the simplest way to build realtime APIs for web and mobile apps
Nest: A modern node.js framework for efficient and scalable web applications built on top of TypeScript

Go

Go-Json-Rest: Thin layer on top of net/http that helps building RESTful APIs easily
gocrud: Go library to simplify creating, updating and deleting arbitrary depth structured data — to make building REST services fast and easy.
sleepy: RESTful micro-framework written in Go.
restit: Go micro framework to help writing RESTful API integration test.
go-relax: Framework of pluggable components to build RESTful API's.
go-rest: Small and evil REST framework for Go.
go-restful: A declarative highly readable framework for building restful API's.
Goat: Minimalistic REST API server in Go.
Resoursea: REST framework for quickly writing resource based services.
Zerver: Zerver is a expressive, modular, feature completed RESTful framework.
Fiber: ⚡Fiber is an Express inspired web framework written in Go with ☕ .

Scala

Colossus: I/O and microservice library for Scala.
Finatra: Fast, testable, Scala HTTP services built on Twitter-Server and Finagle.
Play: The high velocity web framework for Java and Scala.
Scalatra: Simple, accessible and free web micro-framework.
Skinny Micro: Micro-web framework to build servlet applications in Scala.
Spray: Open-source toolkit for building REST/HTTP-based integration layers on top of Scala and Akka.
Akka HTTP: The Akka HTTP modules implement a full server- and client-side HTTP stack on top of akka-actor and akka-stream.
Swagger Akka HTTP: Swagger-Akka-Http brings Swagger support for Akka-Http Apis.

Java

Rest.li: REST framework using type-safe bindings and asynchronous, non-blocking IO.
Dropwizard: Framework for developing ops-friendly, high-performance, RESTful web services.
Jersey: RESTful web services in Java.
Spring Boot: RESTful Web Service using Spring, high-performance and little configuration needed.
Metamug Mason: Create REST APIs with JSP tags and SQL. Edit and hot deploy REST resources on the server.

Haskell

Scotty: Micro web framework inspired by Ruby's Sinatra, using WAI and Warp.
Spock: Another Haskell web framework for rapid development.
Servant: A Type-Level Web DSL.
Yesod: The Haskell RESTful web framework.

Elixir

Phoenix: Framework for building HTML5 apps, API backends and distributed systems.
Plug: A specification and conveniences for composable modules between web applications.

Erlang

Cowboy: Small, fast, modular HTTP server written in Erlang.
Gen Microservice: This library solves the problem of implementing microservices with Erlang.
Mochiweb: Erlang library for building lightweight HTTP servers.

Postgres

PostgREST: Serve a RESTful API from any existing PostgreSQL database.
pREST: pREST is a way to serve a RESTful API from any databases written in Go.

MySQL

xmysql: Generate REST APIs for any MySQL Database.

PHP

API Platform: API framework on top of Symfony with JSON-LD, Schema.org and Hydra support
Dingo API: A RESTful API package for the Laravel and Lumen frameworks
Fractal: Fractal provides a presentation and transformation layer for complex data output, the like found in RESTful APIs, and works really well with JSON
Yii2 Framework: Provides a whole set of tools to simplify the task of implementing RESTful Web Service APIs

Miscellaneous

Dream Factory: Turn any database into an API platform.

API Client Development Tools

General

Swagger CodeGen: Generate client libraries automatically from a Swagger-compliant server.
AutoRest: Generate client libraries for RESTful web services
OpenAPI Generator: A community fork of Swagger Codegen to automatically generate API clients, server stubs and documentation for REST APIs given an OpenAPI/Swagger spec.

Ruby

Net::HTTP: An HTTP client API for Ruby.
faraday: Simple, but flexible HTTP client library, with support for multiple backends.
rest-client: Simple HTTP and REST client for Ruby
heroics: Ruby HTTP client for APIs represented with JSON schema.
blanket: A Ruby API wrapper.
nestful: Ruby HTTP/REST client.

Java

Retrofit: A type-safe HTTP client for Android and Java.

Javascript

Restangular: Restangular is an AngularJS service that simplifies common GET, POST, DELETE, and UPDATE requests with a minimum of client code

.NET

Refit: The automatic type-safe REST library for .NET Core, Xamarin and .NET
WebAnchor: Web Anchor provides type-safe, testable and flexible access to web resources.

API Documentation

ReDoc: OpenAPI/Swagger-generated API Reference Documentation.
Swagger UI: Dynamically generate documentation from a Swagger-compliant API.
Slate: Static site generated documentation for your API.
prmd: JSON Schema tooling: scaffold, verify, and generate documentation from JSON Schema documents.
Aglio: An API Blueprint renderer with theme support that outputs static HTML.
Apiary: Collaborative design, instant API mock, generated documentation, integrated code samples, debugging and automated testing.
Readme: API Documentation Hosting.
API Docs: Hosted public API documentation for OAS (Swagger) and RAML specs.
Docbox: REST API documentation generator, using Markdown.
widdershins: REST API documentation generator from OpenAPI 3.0 / Swagger 2.0 / AsyncAPI 1.x / Semoasa 0.1.0 definition

API Clients

Hosted

JSON Generator: Generate and host mock JSON data.

Desktop

Postman: Desktop API testing tool.
Firecamp: API Studio for WebSocket, Rest API and GraphQL.
HTTPie: Command line HTTP client.
Paw: REST client for Mac.
Insomnia: REST API client for Mac, Windows, and Linux.

API Debugging and Mocking

Hosted

Beeceptor: An HTTP-proxy for rest APIs - inspect and build mock APIs.
MockBin: Generate mock HTTP endpoints.
httpbin: Templated responses for testing various scenarios for HTTP requests.

Desktop

Postman: Desktop API client and mocking tool.
Json-Server Full fake REST API with zero coding.
Mockoon: Desktop API mocking tool.

API Design Guides

API Publishing

Mashape: API Marketplace.

API Gateways

Ambassador API Gateway: Ambassador is a specialized control plane that translates Kubernetes annotations to Envoy configuration. All traffic is directly handled by the high-performance Envoy Proxy.
AWS API Gateway: Traffic management, authorization and access control, monitoring, and API version management.
APIAxle: Proxy that sits in front of your APIs.
APIGrove: API manager built in Java on top of Fuse ESB.
Apigee127: nodejs based API Gateway
Pushpin: Proxy for both request/response or streaming (long poll) of responses
Strongloop: nodejs based API Gateway
Fusio: PHP based open source API management platform
Camel: Empowers you to define routing and mediation rules in a variety of domain-specific languages, including a Java-based fluent API, Spring or Blueprint XML configuration files, and a Scala DSL.
HAProxy: Reliable, high Performance TCP/HTTP load balancer.
OpenResty: Fast web application server built on top of Nginx.
Tengine: A distribution of Nginx with some advanced features.
Tyk: Open-source, fast and scalable API gateway, portal and API management platform.
Vulcand: Programmatic load balancer backed by Etcd.
Zuul: An edge service that provides dynamic routing, monitoring, resiliency, security, and more.
Kong: An open-source management layer for APIs, delivering high performance and reliability.
Janus: A lightweight API Gateway written in Go by Hello Fresh.
fabio: A fast, modern, zero-conf load balancing HTTP(S) router for deploying microservices managed by consul by eBay.
Traefik: Træfik (pronounced like traffic) is a modern HTTP reverse proxy and load balancer written in Go.
Oathkeeper: OIdentity & Access Proxy (IAP) that authorizes HTTP requests based on sets of rules. Integrates with ORY Hydra.

API Security

Online OpenAPI/Swagger File Security Audit: Free online static analysis of API contract files. Upload the file and get the report.
API Security checklist: Checklist of the most important security countermeasures when designing, testing, and releasing your API.
Ory Hydra: OAuth2 server with OpenID Connect written in Go.
Approov: Mobile App Attestation to ban API abuse by verifying the software that is accessing your API. User authentication is not enough!

API Monitoring

Runscope: API Performance Monitoring.
Ping-API: Automated API Testing.

API Testing

Assertible: Continuously test and monitor your APIs after deployments and across environments.
Pyresttest: YAML based REST testing and API microbenchmarking tool
OWASP Zaproxy: A tool to test your API for known security vulnerabilities, with a great CI integration.

API Developer Portal

Tyk: API Developer Portal on top of API gateway, make your API gateway easier to be used by developers.
APIMATIC: Instantly build an API Portal with SDKs, Live Code Samples, Test Cases, API Transformation and language specific Docs & Reference - tailored for your API.

JSON Format Standards

Learning Resources

Blogs

API Evangelist

References

HTTP Status Codes Reference

Contributing

Pull Requests are most welcome!

Please write a brief one-sentence summary when adding a new resource.

Thanks

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HTTP API Development Tools

Introduction

Table of Contents

API Specification Languages

API Specification Tools

API Specifications

API Frameworks

Ruby

Python

Javascript

Go

Scala

Java

Haskell

Elixir

Erlang

Postgres

MySQL

PHP

Miscellaneous

API Client Development Tools

General

Ruby

Java

Javascript

.NET

API Documentation

API Clients

Hosted

Desktop

API Debugging and Mocking

Hosted

Desktop

API Design Guides

API Publishing

API Gateways

API Security

API Monitoring

API Testing

API Developer Portal

JSON Format Standards

Learning Resources

Blogs

References

Contributing

Thanks