Say Goodbye to Manual Documentation with these 6 tools
API Documentation is how consumers first interact with an API. To keep them hooked, it’s essential that documentation is done well enough to cater to all kinds of consumers. Seasoned developers may prefer to start straight away with copy-paste ready code samples, or client libraries in their native languages, while novices may require more hand-holding with proper guides and tutorials. It’s important you have something for everyone
Curating a Developer Experience that fits the needs of everyone is somewhat impossible and can require hours of tedious work when done manually.
However, with a minimum effort of maintaining an API specification, there are tools available which can help you automate the documentation process entirely. Many API Documentation tools today can help you automatically generate detailed documentation along with sample code and everything which makes it easy to consume APIs. Some of these tools may even provide interactive API explorers, where consumers could try out the samples in real time.
Popular tools include (in no specific order):
2. Readme.io
3. Apiary
4. Gelato.io
5. Stoplight.io
6. APIMatic’s Developer Experience Portal
We’ll discuss these in detail and see how they compare against each other:
1. Swagger UI/ Swagger HUB:
Swagger is a complete framework for describing, producing, consuming, and visualizing RESTful web services.
Swagger UI is an open source tool which allows anyone to visualize and interact with an API’s resources. The tool takes “Swagger Specification” as input and generates optimal HTML, CSS and JavaScript to present it into a human-readable format. There are many implementations of the open source project but the official, publically available version comes without any sort of customizations or dynamic code samples and cannot be integrated with your services. However, developers can utilize SwaggerHub, a premium version to fulfill all their documentation needs.
Swagger UI, being open source and completely free, is the most common platform used to document APIs, something that works for both novices and experts alike.
2. Readme.io:
Readme.io is a complete documentation solution for APIs. It can convert your specifications into beautiful navigable documentation pages, and along with that generates sample code snippets in a number of languages. The tool also comes with a Markdown-based text editor, versioning support and an API explorer to demonstrate sample calls. Readme.io cannot yet generate language-specific documentation.
The human touch added to documentation by the team at Readme.io is what that sets it apart. The instructions are very thorough and is a great way to get beginners not familiar with too many technical terms and jargons, started.
3. Apiary:
Apiary is a versatile tool which allows you to document, design and prototype APIs. The tool takes API Blueprint and OpenAPI Specification as input and quickly generates the popular three-tiered layout documentation with reactive code snippets alongside. Apart from that, you can also design your APIs on their API descriptor and test them on their mock server and debugger. Partnered with Oracle, the tool is a popular choice for many API providers and has seen wide adoption. The Traffic Inspector is something unique provided by the platform, this lets developers debug wrong API calls by tracking them to the root.
4. Gelato.io:
Gelato is another amazing API tool which comes packed with powerful features. With the tool, you can generate completely customizable Developer Portals with interactive API Explorers, Live Consoles and Code Samples in multiple languages. Gelato lets you customize these portals. Some notable customizations include custom headers and footers, custom colors and custom fonts to match your branding.
However, Gelato only accepts Swagger and API BluePrint as inputs and the generated portals can be only hosted as a separate resource and come without any embedding options.
But the tool, with its intuitive UI, is a great learning platform for developers of all kinds.
5. Stoplight.io:
Stoplight.io also offers multiple API lifecycle management features including an API designer, a mocking service, some testing features, and a documentation generation service. They take in OpenApi/Swagger and RAML specification as input and format it nicely into a human-readable presentation. Stoplight provides a great interactive platform which can be visually customized to a certain extent, however, you cannot integrate their services into your development cycle. Their mocking server is one of the best from the industry, coupled with services such as Spec Validation, Dynamic Responses, and HTTP Validation.
6. APIMatic’s Developer Experience Portal
APIMatic’s Developer Experience portal does more than just Documentation and generates client libraries and code samples as well. The portal comes with a Landing Page and a Getting started Section and offers both Documentation and SDKs in over 10 languages. The tool takes input in over 15 specification formats including RAML, WSDL, OAS, APIMatic format, etc.
It takes just a few seconds to generate portals complete with copy-paste ready Code Samples, a live API Console, and Test Cases. The Getting-Started guides contain detailed instructions along with tutorials specifically curated for each platform and IDE. Custom Sections can be added anytime to add additional guide materials of your choice as well. You can also publish your SDKs as packages on npm, ruby gems, and pypi as soon as they are generated.
The portals are completely customizable and can be made to reflect any company’s branding. You can either embed the portal into your current platform or host it as a separate resource on a custom domain. On top of all that, all of these features can be integrated with your CI/CD cycle, so changes you make to your API can be reflected on your portals on the go. The portals also feature an API Editor, where you can design your API and export it in over 15 different specification formats.
Concluding this all, we’d like to emphasize on the fact that the value of an API hugely depends on the learning ability of the consumer. Companies like Twilio and Stripe realized that early and developed their learning platforms accordingly, and saw great success with it.
You need to make sure that your documentation is done well enough to suit everyone’s need. However spending too much time and resources on documentation may hurt your pockets, and that’s something which automation can take care of. All of these tools discussed above may make your life easier one way or the other, all depends on your use case and requirements. You can always contact us to know what would best work for you.
