API design 101: Links to our most popular posts

APIs play a critical role in helping software connect and communicate, as well as making the lives of developers a little easier. Over the years we’ve published a number of posts to help developers design APIs to get the most from them. 

Below is a list of our most popular API design posts you can read now or bookmark for later.

Getting started with API design

• API Web Design: The Missing Link: Best Practices for Crafting Interfaces that Developers Love [ebook]
• APIs 101: Everything you need to know about API design

• Designing and managing APIs: Best practices & common pitfalls

• API Design Guide [documentation]

Different approaches: REST, RPC, and GraphQL

• Understanding gRPC, OpenAPI and REST and when to use them in API design

• REST vs RPC: What problems are you trying to solve with your APIs?

• GraphQL: Building a consistent approach for the API consumer

• Why your APIs should be entity-oriented

Best practices

• Why you should use links, not keys, to represent relationships in APIs

• Names vs identifiers in URLs: Which should you use in your API design?

• The false dichotomy of stability vs human-centric URL design in web APIs

• API Design: Which version of versioning is right for you?

• API versioning best practices: When you need versioning and when you don't

• Solving SEO problems with API design, part 1

• Solving SEO problems with API design, part 2

Want to keep reading? Find more of our API related content on the Cloud blog here.