Do you know how developers can be more productive? Whether you’re a developer or have to lead the developer’s team, good productivity means you have done more work without additional time and resources.
So if you want to boost the developer’s productivity and create value for the shareholders and customers without any extra staff, then this guide is for you. In this post, you’ll learn how to improve the developer’s productivity using free public APIs.
Table of Contents
What Are Public APIs?
An API stands for an Application Programming Interface. It allows the developers to access the data structure of software services or applications and specific features. The free APIs are available publically to developers and give universal access to consumers. Public APIs help developers enhance existing and build new applications or combine different software systems. These APIs allow developers away from an organization’s workforce to access the backend to improve their applications.
Why Does Developers’ Productivity Matter?
Productivity is vital in creating a successful career because it allows workers to develop extra in less time and improves job satisfaction. However, there’s no special difference in the case of developers as it saves time in creating code from the beginning.
Developer’s productivity matters because it impacts the success of software development projects. It can lead to a faster time-to-time market, essential in today’s competitive business landscape. When developers are productive, they can work efficiently, write more code, create new features, and fix bugs faster.
Additionally, free public APIs improve the quality of code produced and increase developers’ productivity. When developers are productive, they can focus on writing clean, efficient, and maintainable code, improving the software’s overall quality.
Finally, developer productivity also impacts the morale of the development team. When developers are productive and feel a sense of accomplishment, they are more likely to stay motivated and engaged, leading to better outcomes for the project.
Pressure, Expectation & Complexity of Modern Developers and How APIs Ease This Burden
Modern developers face a variety of challenges in their daily work, including pressure to deliver high-quality software quickly, manage the increasing complexity of software, and meet the high expectations of their employers and end-users. Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) can help alleviate some of these challenges by allowing developers to leverage pre-built code and services.
APIs Come With Pre-Existing Code
APIs can help reduce the pressure to deliver software quickly. By using APIs, developers can build on top of pre-existing code and services, saving time and effort in the development process. This allows developers to focus on the core functionality of the software they are building while relying on APIs to handle other aspects of the application.
Lower the Complexity
APIs can help manage the complexity of modern software. By using APIs, developers can avoid having to reinvent the wheel and can instead leverage existing code and services to handle complex tasks. For example, developers can use APIs to handle authentication, payments, or machine learning tasks, freeing them up to focus on the core functionality of their application.
Extended Support to Elevate Creativity
APIs can help meet the high expectations of both employers and end-users. By using APIs, developers can create software that meets the needs of their end-users, such as intuitive user interfaces or seamless integration with other software. Employers can also benefit from the use of APIs by reducing the cost and time required to develop software while still meeting business requirements.
In short, APIs can help alleviate some of the pressures, complexity, and expectations that modern developers face in their daily work. By using APIs, developers can save time, reduce complexity, and build software that meets the needs of both their employers and end-users.
Benefits of Public APIs
Free Public API controls the communication between the two applications. You cannot easily use modern business technology without using API. Even these free APIs made the developer’s work more accessible and boosted productivity.
Here are some fantastic benefits of public APIs:
Existing Functionality– Free Public APIs provide access to existing functionality to developers and public data they can use to form new applications. But how can it help increase productivity? It reduces the developer’s time and resources in creating everything from scratch.
Improved Integration and User Experience– In addition to existing functionality, free public APIs can help developers boost the web application process. Moreover, it also enables integration between different systems, applications, and services. It improves the user experience by making it easier to use other products together seamlessly.
Improved Efficiency- Open data APIs help developers to create applications more efficiently by letting them focus on the functionality they desire to build instead worrying about the technology.
Increased Functionality- With the help of the APIs, developers can include new functionalities in the application without building it themselves. It can allow them to create more innovative and complicated applications.
Lead Generation- Lead generation is one of the most important benefits of using Free API. Free APIs are the best source to increase your company’s brand recognition and connect with new customers since the prospects for a new development boost user participation. These open APIs provide a platform for developers to form integrations and extensions to the products and services.
List of Public APIs Used by Developers in 2023
There are different types of public APIs that are most frequently used by developers to access better data structure inputs. The free APIs are like borrowing someone’s tool to complete your work easily.
Here are some best APIs that are on the top list of developers:
- Fixer API
- Weatherstack
- Number Verification API
Fixer API
Fixer API can deliver real-time exchange rate data for 170 world currencies. It has multiple endpoints offering a different end cases. These endpoint functionalities include converting the amount of one currency to another, getting the latest exchange rate for all or specific sets of currencies, querying the API for regular fluctuating data, and retrieving time series data for single or multiple currencies. Check out the detailed documentation here!
Moreover, Fixer is a lightweight API for current and historical foreign exchange rates issued by European Central Bank. It is built on a robust backend infrastructure allowing for high availability and response times below 50 ms for specific API requests. Tap here to try your FREE plan!
Weatherstack
Another best free API that people use is Weatherstack. It is the most popular and widely used API, trusted by 74,000 plus companies, including Microsoft, Deloitte, Warner Brothers, etc.
Here are some features of weatherstack API:
- It provides accurate real-time, historical, and forecast weather data.
- Weatherstack supports different location identifiers using names, coordinates, zip codes, and IP Addresses (ip geolocation).
- It provides results in 40 languages and gives the response data in JSON format, which make it fast. Click here to get the detailed documentation.
- It can be used in any server or any programming language like Python, PHP, Ruby, Go, jQuery, or Nodejs.
Tap here to try a free plan for weatherstack!
Number Verification API
The NumVerify allows you to keep your lead list uncluttered and deal with fraud by validating contact numbers at your system access point. It can provide you with information like location, carrier, country, and line type. Additionally, it supports 230 countries, and the validation system of the format is based on regular updates in international phone numbering plans. If you connect API through HTTPS, it ensures safe and encrypted data streams. You can validate 250 phone numbers per month for free. Additionally, the plans of the NumVerify are very cheap and affordable. Here are the detailed pricing plans!
To get detailed documentation for NumVerify, tap here.
How APILayer Comforts Developers With Its Extensive Array of Public APIs
By utilizing multiple APIs within the APILayer, developers can broaden the scope of their development process with accessible accommodation to numerous tools and applications.
With APILayer, all levels of suitable pricing structures enable developers of all sizes to utilize them accordingly. It gives convenience with pay-as-you-go with no minimum requirements, relieving them from upfront costs and long-term obligations.
APILayer alleviates the worries of developers by providing outstanding, reliable APIs, complete documentation and support, scalable infrastructure, and flexible pricing. As a result, developers no longer need to worry about the technical details or underlying infrastructure and can instead focus on building their mobile apps.
In Brief
In brief, using the free public APIs for your developer’s productivity is the best decision. Even you can save a lot of time and can get accurate data without creating the code from the beginning. However, developers’ productivity is the key to checking the quality of the code. Moreover, you can use some best and most popular APIs, such as NumVerify, Weatherstack, and Fixer API, to access data.
Happy Coding!
FAQs
What Is Public API vs Private API?
Public APIs are accessible to everyone and have no usage limitations. Meanwhile, private APIs may have usage limitations and are only accessible to authorized users.
What Are the 3 Types of APIs?
- Restful API – a set of recommendations for scalable, lightweight web APIs.
- SOAP, a stricter standard for safer APIs
- RPC is a protocol that may be used to call processes and is available in both XML (XML-RPC) and JSON (JSON-RPC).
What Are the Public APIs for Forex Conversion?
- Exchange Rates Data API (https://exchangeratesapi.io/)
- Fixer (https://fixer.io/)
- Coinlayer (https://coinlayer.com/)
- Currencylayer (https://currencylayer.com/)
