When building an application, developers often rely on application programming interfaces (APIs) to integrate useful functionality without having to build everything from scratch. But with so many APIs available today, which ones see the most adoption? Here's an overview of some of the most popular APIs used by developers.
Google APIs
Google offers a suite of APIs that enable developers to integrate Google services into their applications. Some of the most widely used include:
// Display map centered on London
let map;
function initMap() {
map = new google.maps.Map(document.getElementById("map"), {
center: {lat: 51.5074, lng: 0.1278},
zoom: 8,
});
}Facebook APIs
Facebook's Graph API allows developers to read and write data to Facebook such as profiles, pages, posts, photos and comments. This is essential for building any Facebook integrated experience such as:
Twilio API
The Twilio API powers communication capabilities like SMS, phone calls, and video chat. It's popular for enabling apps to:
Stripe API
Stripe's API handles payments, subscriptions and invoicing, making it easy for developers to add payment processing into their applications such as:
The above APIs from Google, Facebook, Twilio and Stripe are certainly among the most widely adopted. However, there are many other excellent API options available today for nearly any development need.