Get API Integration for Any Third-Party or Custom-Built REST APIs

API Integration offers business owners the advantage of a ready-made solution without the need to build their own software from scratch. However, before deciding to integrate an API into your software, you need to explore the possible advantages and pitfalls.

Here are the third-party integration benefits for your business:

• Accelerated development. By integrating existing solutions, you can save lots of time that would otherwise be spent on developing something that’s already available.  
• Cost-efficiency. APIs are relatively cheap and quick to integrate, so you can invest saved resources in developing unique features that will make your software stand out from the competition.

• Enhanced functionality. You can leverage access to well-tested functionality developed by companies with extensive experience in their domains.
• Better user experience. You can provide your users with a richer experience, including functionality such as secure payment gateways, social media login, or language translation services.

APIs greatly aid the software development process, but they come with certain concerns. Before adding third-party integrations to your project, here’s what you need to consider:

• Management issues. While adding functionality via APIs is convenient, too many third-party integrations can make your app’s infrastructure chaotic and hard to manage and maintain. Different API providers have different agreements and latency times, and these inconsistencies may cause performance issues and data reception problems during integration.
• Budget constraints. Fixing issues caused by integrating too many APIs may inflate project costs, even though third-party integrations are usually budget-friendly. Fixing any issues with your APIs, including security, functionality, or infrastructure issues, requires additional spending on your part.
• Limited provider support. If something stops working, you can’t always rely on your provider to quickly fix the issue. Dependence on API providers for issue resolution may result in production delays. 

• Lack of control over functionality. Third-party API providers determine available functionalities, limiting customization options. So, you need to take it or leave it when it comes to their set of features. Don’t expect a third-party integration to suit all your personal needs and preferences: in most cases, you’ll need to adapt your project and seek compromises.
• Security concerns. Before integrating a third-party API, carefully assess the security measures implemented by the API provider. Make sure that your chosen API provides robust authentication methods to identify users and authorize access to endpoints. Otherwise, your sensitive data might be susceptible to various threats like man-in-the-middle attacks. 

It’s worth noting that most popular API providers strive to accommodate developers’ and businesses’ needs, but smaller development companies may lack thorough testing. From our experience, we recommend you exercise caution with less-known APIs that might not have gone through a rigorous third party integration testing process. Now, let’s see how to make your APIs function effectively with the help of correct protocols.

The Types of APIs

There are really only 3 API frameworks, REST (representational State Transfer), SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), and RPC (Remote Procedural Call).

REST APIs

REST APIs specialize in transferring data from a server to a client. There’s a distinct separation between the two because the client generates a request and the server generates a response. All valid requests and responses must follow HTTP protocol and responses are formatted in JSON to ensure compatibility.

The interactions between the two are stateless and the server never stores data from the client request. REST APIs are designed so that neither the client nor the server can tell whether it’s communicating with the end application, or rather with another intermediary layer like an API gateway or a load balancer. As a rule of thumb, all REST APIs have a layered architecture to ensure the client and the server go through several intermediary layers in the communication loop. REST APIs also make resources cacheable to improve performance.

SOAP APIs

SOAP APIs are focused on highly secure internal data transfers. The SOAP framework has been around since the 1990s and it defines how messages should be sent and what resources should be included in them. They’re more secure than REST APIs, but also much more code-intensive and difficult to implement. All SOAP APIs use XML to encode information. The main advantage of SOAP APIs is that they work over any communication protocol, not just HTTP.

RPC APIs

RPC APIs use both JSON and XML protocols and they’re used to execute scripts on a server. They’re mainly used for internal systems and remote services/networks. Whereas the previous two API frameworks focus on transferring data, RPC APIs invoke processes and actions.

If you want to add enhanced functionality to your website/ application for third-party related services using their API, we will assist and do it for you.