Open source gives its contribution nearly in any type software development either free of cost or commercially paid. There are some dedicated open source repositories those provide open source code, software and coding tools free of costs such as GitHub and SourceForge. The development of RESTful APIs also gives a way to API development tools for creating, testing, designing and managing them. Here we have gathered some open source and free API development tools so that developers of APIs like load testers, API designers, metrics collectors, and more can complete their tasks easily.
Also Read:
Best Opensource Api Gateways, Management and Testing Tools
Apigility
Apigility key features
- RESTful or RPC services
- JSON (specifically, HAL)
- Problem Details for HTTP APIs
- Versioning
- Normalization and Validation
- Authentication (HTTP Basic/Digest, OAuth2)
- Documentation (HTML, Swagger, API Blueprint).
2. Falcon
Falcon is Python web framework that works great with CPython 2.6 and 2.7, PyPy, and CPython 3.3+. Also, there are a number of Falcon add-ons, templates, and complimentary packages are available.
Falcon key features
- Python web frameworks
- Works great with CPython 2.6 and 2.7, PyPy, and CPython 3.3+.
- Number of Falcon add-ons, templates, and complimentary packages are available
- Highly-optimized, extensible code base
- Intuitive routing via URI templates and REST-inspired resource classes
- Easy access to headers and bodies through request and response classes
- DRY request processing via middleware components and hooks
- Idiomatic HTTP error responses
- Straightforward exception handling
- Snappy unit testing through WSGI helpers and mocks
- ~20% speed boost when Cython is available
3. LoopBack
LoopBack is another open source API creation tool based on the Node.js framework and IBM API Connect for creating APIs. LoopBack API Connect also provides its own command-line tool, integrated with API management and gateway features.
LoopBack key features
- End to end REST APIs can create quickly and dynamically.
- Connect devices and browsers to data and services.
- Use Android, iOS, and AngularJS SDKs to easily create client apps.
- Add-on components for file management, 3rd-party login, and OAuth2.
- Runs on-premises or in the cloud
4. Amazon API Gateway
The Amazon API Gateway is a free trail tool that allows developers to create, maintain, monitor and publish the API with few click from AWS management Console. Amazon API Gateway will not charge any fees or startup cost, the fee they will charge depends on the API calls you receive and the of data transferred out. It handles all the tasks involved in accepting and processing up to hundreds of thousands of concurrent API calls, including traffic management, authorization and access control, monitoring, and API version management.
5. Restlet Studio
Restlet’s API-First platform is composed of three modules: Restlet Client, Restlet Studio, and Restlet Cloud. It comes in three plans: Free, Solo, Team, and Scale. The Free plan gives 1000 calls in production but an unlimited number of API calls during testing. The Basic support given by Restlet studio is only to one API.
It also provides an open source framework called Restlet Framework for Java developers who want to create and use APIs.
Restlet Framework Key Features
- Native REST Support
- Fully multi-threaded design
- Standard security and authentication methods
- Build and call any type of web API
- A Complete Web Server
- Extensive Connectors Set and more.
6. JsonStub
On the JsonStub website, they have mentioned: ” Fake the back end while you develop the front end”. It is an online based API creator that mockups backend to test the front end API queries. It has a simple web interface where you just need to register and it is free.
7. Mockable.io
Mockable is also a web-based tool that can be used to create a mockup or demo backend for REST and SOAP. The is divided into two parts: Demo domain and Premium domain. The Demo domain is free forever, the mock limit is 10 and request logs retention is for 24 hours or unless they exceed 5MB. The team member limit is up to 3 and the good thing is that you don’t need to sign up to try it out. Just visit the website and admin console will temporarily created fo you.
8. Swagger
Swagger is another open source framework powered by a large group of tools that helps you design, build, document, and consume your RESTful APIs. It also has a cloud-based platform called SwaggerHub to build, document, and deploy your API. SwaggerHub integrates the functionality of the open source Swagger Editor, Swagger UI, and Swagger CodeGen and offers additional capabilities such as hosting, versioning, access control, team collaboration, and sync with source control and API management platforms.
Swagger uses three core tools:
- Swagger Editor
- Swagger Codegen
- Swagger UI
9. API Umbrella
API Umbrella is an opensource API management tools. It is basically a proxy that sits in front of your APIs.
It can seamlessly add common functionality like API keys, rate limiting, and analytics to any API.
- API Keys
- Rate Limiting
- Analytics
- Caching
- Unify your APIs
- Admin Web Interface
- Admin REST APIs
- Multitenancy
10. Tyk Open Source API Gateway
Tyk is an open source API Gateway that out of the box offers an API management platform with an API Gateway, API analytics, developer portal and API Management Dashboard. It offers three packages Community editions that is Completely FREE, Pro Editions is start from £100 p/m and enterprise editions is start from £1,500 p/m.
11. Kong
The open-source API Gateway and Microservices Management Layer, delivering high performance and reliability.
Apigee
Apigee is an API management solution that can quickly create APIs from existing services and data. It also generate reports on developer engagement, traffic composition, and others.
13. Wso2 Api Management
These are some API Tools, if you have any suggestion or tool you want to add in this list please comment.
Very nice article!
I would take a look in other solutions as well:
– MuleSoft
– Axway
– 3scale
– TreeGateway
– and others.
There’s a complete list at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/API_management
Cheers!
ColdFusion API Manager (ironically written in Java, not CF), is also a commercial turnkey solution. It’s one of the easier ones to use and is feature complete