25 Best APIs to give your Business a Head-Start ---- 6 min read

Integration of APIs is one of the most effective ways to build new features in online businesses and increase their revenue and growth. It is always wise to Buy than Build. Smartly chosen APIs not only save time but are also quality-driven and cost-effective. In this article, we’ve highlighted a curated collection of 25 best APIs available to achieve common features.

The benefits of these APIs are not always obvious or visible as these are something that works behind the scenes. Therefore, before we dig right into the Best APIs, let us first understand what an API is:

Image Source: Giphy Developers

Now that you understand what an API is, let us take you to a list that we have compiled. I’m sure there are much more popular  that I’ve missed, but here’s our take on some of the best APIs that can help you launch and grow your Business Online. 

Note: The following list consists of a more Curated collection rather than most Popular APIs available in the market. Let us have a look:

25 Best APIs you need to Launch & Grow your Online Business

Launching an online business is not an easy task. It takes a lot of effort and time to develop an application in reality from an Idea. The first two Companies to make their APIs public were Salesforce and eBay in the year 2000. Since then many companies have launched their APIs. So for new businesses, there are many opportunities available in the market now to improve their processes. 

Just integrate the desired APIs into your application or websites, and you will be able to access those functionalities. Easy, Isn’t it!

This Article lists 25 Best APIs in the following categories:

• Google (3)
• Social Services (3)
• Location (3)
• Communication (3)
• DevTools (4)
• Entertainment (3)
• CRM (3)
• Payments (3)

1) Google

Google has got so many products and tools that can prove to be very useful if integrated with applications. Google’s APIs help you use and communicate with many popular Google services. And the best part is that most of these APIs are free.

Some of the most used Google APIs are:

• Gmail API: Lets you access Gmail Mailbox, also lets you send Email to User.
• Google Analytics API: Analyze data related to visitors on your website.
• Google Adsense Management: Manage AdSense through this API and Create Performance Reports.

2) Social Services

Integrating Social Service APIs in Websites/Applications is a must for most businesses. Every major Social Network has rolled out their APIs to improve user experience. However, APIs cannot be copied to make a duplicate of the original product.

Some of the Major Social Service APIs are:

• Twitter API: Allows developers to incorporate Twitter services within their products.
• Facebook API: Facebook has split its functions in several different APIs: Facebook Graph, Facebook Ads, Facebook Atlas, and Facebook Marketing.
• Instagram API: Can be used to search for photos by location, users, tags or to view trending photos and make custom items.

3) Location

Location APIs are designed to harness the power of sensors and signals of a device to provide users with geographically contextual experiences. These APIs are generated from a combination of several connections and networks from a dozen sources to increase their accuracy.

Some of the standard Location APIs are:

• Google Maps & Places: The most commonly used Location API is Google Maps API. These can be easily embedded in your existing Application or Website to avail Google Maps services.
• NASA: NASA APIs are developed with the sole objective of making the NASA Datasets, including Images and Visualizations easily accessible to developers.
• Yelp: Yelp makes specific data available that are geographically-oriented. It can be used to extract data by searching through ratings, or distance from any location.

4) Communication APIs

Communication is the key to growth, and it has become one of the most important aspects to keep users engaged. Popular communication APIs are messaging enabling APIs that help in embedding Text Chat, Video and Voice calling features within Mobile Applications and Websites.

Some of the commonly used Communication APIs are:

• Channelize.io: A Real-time, User-to-user Communication Enabler for Apps & Websites. Channelize.io enables businesses to add messaging and calling capabilities in their apps for communication between users, and fulfills strong use cases for Social Networking, Education, Healthcare, Financial Services, On-demand Services, and other app types. It also helps in launching apps with Chat as a core feature.
• Telegram: They mainly provide 2 APIs; the first is Bot API that allows creating programs using telegram as an interface. The second is the Telegram API, where one can customize Telegram as per custom requirements.
• Lob: Lob is somewhat different from the two APIs mentioned above. It provides APIs for mail, print, and addresses verification that allows you to send personalized postcards, letters, and checks to your customers.

5) DevTools

DevTools, also known as Web Developer Tools, are tools that primarily work in the backend. These tools are different from the Integrated Development Environments (IDEs).

Some commonly used DevTools are:

• Algolia: Algolia provides an API that lets you integrate a search feature within your Applications and Websites. Algolia’s API is designed to search billions of queries within 100ms regardless of your location around the world.
• IFTTT: IFTTT’s APIs are divided into services and triggers. It connects your Applications and Devices with the help of “If This, Then that” Statements where “this” refers to triggers part and “that” refers to the service you want to connect with.
• Amazon S3: Amazon S3 API provides you the Amazon AWS Storage, for your own APIs, where one can store, retrieve, list and delete file objects in S3.
• Firebase: Firebase is an API that lets developers easily sync and store data in realtime. Developers can use the service to build their apps without having to manage servers or write server-side code.

6) Entertainment

Entertainment has always kept users hooked. Some of the Online Media companies have created their Application Programmable Interfaces to make their content and streaming capabilities available to other applications. For Ex: Recently, the popular dating app Bumble added Spotify’s API. This allows its users to share the type of music they are interested in, thus providing a different angle to look at a prospects’ personality.

Most popular used entertainment APIs:

• YouTube API: With the YouTube Data API, you can add a variety of YouTube features to your application. Use the API to upload videos, manage playlists and subscriptions, update channel settings, and more.
  
• Spotify: Spotify API is an interface that allows developers to enable access to its music data over the internet. It will enable users to retrieve and manage Spotify’s data.
• MusiXmatch: MusiXmatch API is also related to the music industry. However, it is somewhat different from Spotify API as it allows the developers to display the lyrics of over 13M tracks over Websites or Apps.

7) CRM

A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) API can be used to provide centralized access to all the different applications that you use to operate your business.

• ZenDesk: ZenDesk provides a standard API that helps in sharing customer support tickets using JSON and REST with different issue tracking system instances.
  
• Agile CRM:  Agile CRM API provides seamless integration of its API with relevant enterprise applications. Agile API provides backend as well as frontend RESTful APIs with readymade components.
• ZOHO API: Although Zoho CRM has multiple APIs for different services, one can easily work with all of Zoho’s components using its REST API.

8) Payments

Payment APIs can be integrated into your existing Application or Websites and are used to connect your organization’s checkout system to a payment receiving network. These Gateways allow users to make their purchases without leaving your website to process payments.

• PayPal: PayPal is the most popular payment system. The PayPal API allows accepting payments from PayPal users. PayPal allows users to retrieve their confidential data stored on PayPal servers to make payments, without ever sharing financial credentials.
• Stripe API: The Stripe API gives developers access to the following methods: Accepting Payments, Tracking User Accounts, Managing Subscriptions and Sending Invoices.
• Paybook: Paybook API connects users to Bank Accounts, Government Agency Accounts, and Utility Accounts. Paybook APIs also provide the service of generating invoices, verifying identities and checking credits.

Summary

And that’s our take on a curated collection of 25 best APIs in 2019. Do you agree with our list? Or, would you like to add any API?

Comment below with some of the best and most unique APIs you have used, and which have more to offer than we already know.

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