
Ask HN: Are there API centric frameworks that have the same traction as Rails? - thomasfromcdnjs
For those of you who have used Rails, it does a pretty good job of exercising best practises at your finger tips. Over the years I have been waiting for a dominant winner in the API space.<p>I know of many attempts from across many different languages but none seem to cater for A-&gt;B development when taking into account versioning, rate-limiting and other API centric ideas.<p>In my mind, problems like the lack of consensus on how to even semantically create resource&#x2F;routes have delayed the process.
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55555
Flask for python. It's so bare-bones that it's great for API's even though
it's mostly used for full sites/apps.

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siquick
Flask is brilliant for building small apps/services.

It makes setting up a new Django project feel like a complete PITA.

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tmlee
Grape by Intridea [https://github.com/ruby-
grape/grape](https://github.com/ruby-grape/grape) is a nifty choice. It is
somewhat opinionated, but lightweight enough to have most of the features
you'll need in writing an API

Docs over at
[http://intridea.github.io/grape/](http://intridea.github.io/grape/)

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hackerboos
Grape + ROAR + Swagger is a good combo.

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codegeek
Take a look at Laravel in PHP and also Lumen. I have been working with it for
API work for past 2-3 months and I am amazed at how good this framework has
been. yes it is PHP but Laravel has redefined the php framework space.

If you like Python, then Flask framework is the way to go. Another great
framework that I have worked with and love.

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__glibc_malloc
The Laravel documentation is an example of the worst documentation ever. It
reminds me of the Fox News channel. I can't recommend using it on anything
serious.

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lgas
They don't have the level of adoption but if your concern is automating best
practices then you may be interested in Webmachine[0] (Erlang) or one of it's
descendants like Liberator[1] (Clojure).

[0]:
[https://github.com/Webmachine/webmachine](https://github.com/Webmachine/webmachine)

[1]: [https://github.com/clojure-
liberator/liberator](https://github.com/clojure-liberator/liberator)

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jstoiko
Ramses is trying to solve that by using a RAML file as source of truth.
Regardless of the level of restfulness of your API, what you spec is what you
get. Well, that's the ultimate goal, right now it has limitations and opinions
but we're trying to solve them. I'm a core dev btw.

[http://ramses.tech](http://ramses.tech)
[https://ramses.readthedocs.org](https://ramses.readthedocs.org)

Let me know you thoughts!

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jon-wood
Its still early days for me, but I'm really enjoying working with Pliny[0],
which is a Ruby based framework that came out of Heroku's experience building
APIs. It makes the very good move of just being an opinionated Sinatra stack,
and a set of patterns for things like API representations.

[0] [https://github.com/interagent/pliny](https://github.com/interagent/pliny)

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deviloflaplace
Not a framework but we're working on something called APIPlug
([http://apiplug.com](http://apiplug.com)) that will enable you to get source
code in your desired language. We support versioning and working on oAuth and
rate limiting right now. Drop us a message if we can add some feature that
will make your life easier.

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gt565k
Django rest framework

[http://www.django-rest-framework.org/](http://www.django-rest-framework.org/)

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romanovcode
WebApi2? It's pretty good. Also, MVC6 (it bundles WebApi2 inside of it, soon
to be RC1)

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twunde
I don't think I've seen anything that has the same traction as rails, but
strongloop's loopback framework for nodejs was pretty good for best practices
(I think their enterprise version has some api extras as well)

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MalcolmDiggs
Restify is pretty popular (for node.js), slim (for php), or Sinatra (for ruby)
but I think a lot of developers just don't need much from an API framework, so
they pick the most minimal framework available, or none at all.

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kat
What about Grails? Its the Groovy(ie Java) version of Rails. I think its
gaining traction in enterprise software shops.
[https://grails.org/](https://grails.org/)

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joshavant
Cocoa and Foundation run nearly all Apple technologies and are pretty replete
in their capabilities.

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Irishsteve
flask

