Ditch Old School: Why API-First Design Totally Rocks!

Hello everyone!! In this blog, I will help you to understand why API-First design is better than traditional APIs. You can think of this as upgrading from dial-up to fibre-optic — we will be talking about speed, efficiency and many more advantages as we proceed. This quick read explains the problems with Traditional API designs and why switching to API first will solve most of them.

Let’s start with discussing the problems with Old API Designs

So most of the time in projects which are going on for a long time, the API design was centred around the concept of monolithic APIs. Here, monolithic APIs mean comprehensive APIs, attempting to serve multiple functionalities and trying to get all the data in a single call.

Initially, this approach seemed quite convenient, as you only needed to make a single call from the frontend to render the data according to requirements. There was no need for additional network calls or reaching out to different APIs to display various components.

It led to several challenges:

1. Over fetching of data, the API return more data than the frontend needs, causing unnecessary data transfer and slowing down the application’s responsiveness.
2. On the other hand, sometimes API returns insufficient data, requiring additional calls to retrieve necessary information. This led to increasing latency and complex frontend code to handle the missing data.
3. As the application grows, maintaining these monolithic APIs becomes increasingly difficult. Like if we want to add new features, it might break the existing functionality due to the interconnected nature of these APIs.
4. Even these APIs become prone to human error as the response keeps growing and we tend to miss the actual information that is needed.

What is API First Design?

Value of API First Design(Source: Google)

API-first design is a development approach where you start by designing the interfaces, or APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), that your different software components will use to communicate with each other. This means before you build the actual software, you define how they will interact, what data they will exchange, and what functionalities they will offer.

Let’s understand this better with a simple example, Imagine you are building a house. Instead of starting with walls, windows, and doors separately, API's first design is like planning the blueprint first. You decide how everything will connect and work together before you even start building. It’s like figuring out how your TV, lights, and fridge will work together even before you put them in the house.

So, to address the challenges with Monolithic APIs and create more efficient and maintainable architecture, one should start adopting the API-First design approach. This approach involves breaking down API endpoints into smaller, more focused APIs that serve specific data and functionalities. Each of these smaller APIs is designed with a specific use case for better control over data exchange.

At last, I will discuss the benefits of API First design.

1. Optimised Data Transfer, by breaking down the APIs we can ensure only the necessary data is transferred between the frontend and backend, reducing both over-fetching and under-fetching issues. This helps in a significant reduction in latency.
2. If APIs are specific to a specific use case, you can add better HTTP status codes which will help the frontend to make better decisions based on the response.
3. You can also introduce versioning to your APIs which helps in releasing new versions without disrupting the existing functionality for users.
4. The API-first design facilitates the implementation of query parameter filtering. Frontend applications can now request only the data they need by specifying filtering criteria in the API call, reducing unnecessary data transfer.
5. While creating multiple APIs requires multiple API calls from the frontend, these calls are smaller and faster, leading to a more responsive user interface.
6. Smaller, focused APIs are easier to scale individually. This means that as our application grows, we can scale specific APIs that experience higher usage, without affecting the entire system.
7. With individual APIs serving specific purposes, maintaining and updating our application becomes much easier. Changes in one area are less likely to impact other parts of the application, reducing the risk of unintended consequences.

In conclusion, making the transition to API-first design could prove to be a game-changer for your upcoming projects. So, the next time you find yourself redesigning or embarking on an entirely new project, consider embracing API-first design. By doing so, you can enhance user experiences with seamless interactions, and responsive APIs.

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