

APIs.io – The API search engine - picsoung
http://apis.io

======
sinzone
Good revamp of the old APIsIO. I suggest to check also PublicAPIs
([http://publicapis.com](http://publicapis.com)) with 5,000 APIs listed and
maintained by the community.

~~~
njyx
Public APIs is also a directory - you could now use the apis.json data to keep
that directory info from getting stale. That's the point of the
[http://www.apisjson.org](http://www.apisjson.org) \+ search combination.

------
eo3x0
We almost need the inverse: APIs that are showing signs of death ala Netflix.
It's usually the case that you have an idea for something and an API is pretty
easy to find. Getting your integration pulled out under your feet is really
what sucks.

~~~
thejosh
That's what happens when you build upon the shores of others.

~~~
billmalarky
Still, it's a risk often worth taking. If you look at many of the hypergrowth
projects, a lot of them rely on a current market adopting their product as a
supplement to a platform.

------
killerbat00
It might be nice from a usability perspective to only show the error message
once. As it stands now, it's possible to continually search for a non-existing
API and fill the screen with red errors [1]. (Not that this is a particularly
compelling or realistic workflow or even worth fixing. They disappear within a
few seconds anyway, which is nice.)

[1] [http://imgur.com/dqZY8zW](http://imgur.com/dqZY8zW)

------
bradhe
What's the use case for searching for "an API" exactly? Usually, there's
something very specific you want to do with an API...

~~~
notastartup
it gets 3scale marketing traffic. it doesn't offer anything useful or
functional just a viola effect.

~~~
apievangelist
It doesn't offer anything useful? Really? I spent almost 80 hours hand
crafting the APIs.json for this release. I'm building federal gov versions of
APIs.io with this to drive traffic to vital gov resources, and working to
priortize the APIs.json + Swagger for vital non-profit resources ilke DPLA.
WTF have you done notastartup to further the API community? eh? Links please!!

~~~
notastartup
what you are doing sounds pretty useless.

~~~
admackenzie
I think you comments violate the spirit, and maybe the rules, of HN
-[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

------
SlashmanX
Seems to be perpetually stuck on "loading...". Hug of death?

~~~
scott_w
There's a couple of syntax errors, but it does eventually load. I think the
whole screen is dependent on a web request completing.

Tip: try to get as much of it rendered as possible while you're waiting. Most
JavaScript frameworks have the ability to manage sub-views of some sort, so
you can get most of that screen in place. If you're waiting on the items to
load, try greying out the search box or something?

~~~
picsoung
Still not loading for you?

------
amadeusw
This reminds me of Bret Victor's "Future of programming" at
[http://vimeo.com/71278954](http://vimeo.com/71278954) particularly at 13:50
about APIs - envisioning how computers could themselves discover available
services at other computers. Maybe this API index is just the first step
towards enabling computer programs to independently interact with each other.

~~~
smizell
I think a key here is hypermedia. APIs can only be machine-discoverable if
there are hypermedia links pointing to them (which is how this helps). If
there are no links, then some human must hardcode it.

This also is a reason for including hypermedia in your API, because really,
being machine-discoverable is not just something that the API itself benefits
from... each resource and state can benefit from included hypermedia as well.

~~~
apievangelist
I agree that hypermedia is a more optimal solution for API discovery. APIs.io
+ APIs.json + machine readable formats like Swagger will provide us with a
bridge between what we have, and what we should have (aka hypermedia). We'd
all love to have a perfect reality, but unfortunately we get the one we have.
;-)

~~~
smizell
Definitely! :) Was just pointing out that this search engine was making
discovery possible _because_ of hypermedia. Nicely done!

------
hdivider
One thing to add, perhaps: include API wrappers, client libraries etc.

Stuff that makes it easier to use the actual underlying API.

Eg the YouTube Data API is nice, but you can save a ton of time if you use one
of the client libraries:

[https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/libraries](https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/libraries)

~~~
kingmorgan
there is one other site that i have been using since FOREVER that does this
with client side code snippets and sdks

EDIT: found it its [http://www.mashape.com](http://www.mashape.com)

~~~
hdivider
Awesome. Thanks for digging that up!

------
ssharp
Can I get the list of APIs via an API?

~~~
timdorr

       http://apis.io/api/apis
    

Yes, that is the actual URL...

Can we get a .api TLD so it can be
[http://apis.api/api/apis](http://apis.api/api/apis)?

And maybe an HTTP protocol extension so it can be api://apis.api/api/apis?

------
picsoung
OP here - If you have trouble loading the homepage to search for APIs (due to
lot of traffic)

You can check static pages: [http://apis.io/faq](http://apis.io/faq)
[http://apis.io/lint](http://apis.io/lint)
[http://apis.io/builder](http://apis.io/builder)
[http://apis.io/apiDoc](http://apis.io/apiDoc)
[http://apis.io/about](http://apis.io/about)

~~~
coldcode
Right now it is returning loops of the same apis over and over, randomly.

------
pknerd
How is it different than Programmable Web?

([http://www.programmableweb.com/apis/directory](http://www.programmableweb.com/apis/directory))

~~~
njyx
It's search v's directory. The idea is you can post meta-data on an API on
your own domain using a format
[http://www.apisjson.org/](http://www.apisjson.org/) that can then be crawled.
Right now you still submit links, but it'll start crawling. So then anyone can
write a search engine (the code for apis.io is open source).

With a directory like programmableweb it's useful but you need to put your
data into the repository - and then remember to update it.

------
asyncwords
I'm getting the following error [1] every time I try to open the page with
IE11 on Windows 8.1. It prevents bootstrap.js from loading, which then
prevents everything else from working and just shows a blank white page.

Might explain why some people are having problems loading the site, though it
works fine in Firefox for me.

[1]: [https://i.imgur.com/HWdHT33.png](https://i.imgur.com/HWdHT33.png)

~~~
picsoung
Interesting error... thanks for reporting it. Unfortunately I have no idea
what's going on. but we I will investigate this issue.

~~~
asyncwords
If it helps, the debugger points to an invalid ʹ character in
01135560588655f631606d051ab4cd4df545eead.js. I circled the character in blue
[1]. Beyond that I haven't the foggiest idea.

[1]: [http://i.imgur.com/WgiitFj.png](http://i.imgur.com/WgiitFj.png)

~~~
picsoung
ahah!

thanks :)

------
avalaunch
This is really cool. The one feature request I have is that descriptions be
added. The tags alone aren't enough to determine what an api is offering.

------
emp
Is there a API search engine where one can enter sample inputs and outputs,
and get a list of methods that return the outputs for the given inputs?
Smalltalk has a search function like this - very handy instead of trying to
guess method names.

~~~
kingmorgan
Don't wanna highjack the thread but that's exactly what i was mentioning here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8637324](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8637324)

------
pgroves
If you just want the list of names of the apis:

    
    
        curl "http://apis.io/api/apis?limit=1000" -s |python -m json.tool |grep "\"name\"\:"

~~~
finnn
curl
"[http://apis.io/api/apis?limit=1000"](http://apis.io/api/apis?limit=1000") -s
| jq .data\\[\\].name

jq FTW

------
nvk
I'm getting 400 error when trying to add my API

[https://coinkite.com/static/api/apis.json](https://coinkite.com/static/api/apis.json)

~~~
picsoung
Hi,

You could use [http://apis.io/lint](http://apis.io/lint) to validate your
apis.json file.

Testing your file I found that properties are not correct

"properties": [ { "type": "X-Documentation", "url":
"[https://docs.coinkite.com"](https://docs.coinkite.com") } ],

should work

also "photo" is not a valid parameter. And "vCard" is expecting a URL and
can't be empty.

hope it helps

------
frankdenbow
Very cool. Would be great if you teamed up with Readme.io to make sure all of
their customers are loaded into the search engine (our docs are with Readme)

~~~
apievangelist
I will coordinate with them Frank. I've been working with them for stories.
Good suggestion.

------
picsoung
OP here, i'm spawning more machines, hang in there

------
eridal
Sweet!

Would be really awesome if the site could show api's documentation in a
unified standard format

Kudos for this!

~~~
apievangelist
Coming up next. :-)

------
daviddoran
Searching for "voice calling" changes the input to "voice\ calling". And then
there are no results :(

~~~
picsoung
you could try [http://apis.io/?search=call](http://apis.io/?search=call) or
[http://apis.io/?search=voice](http://apis.io/?search=voice)

there are also some listed
[http://apis.io/?search=tag:voice](http://apis.io/?search=tag:voice)

------
maaaats
The icons doesn't work in Firefox on W8, works in Chrome, though. Just shows
squares with numbers inside.

~~~
picsoung
Thanks for your feedback

is this related to icon font used in the app ? Font-awesome? You can check in
your console and see if there a 404 on the corresponding file.

~~~
maaaats
I get "invalid version tag" and "rejected by sanitizer" for glyphicons-
halflings.woff and .ttf.

------
picsoung
OP here - everything should be back to normal in terms of loading time. Sorry
for the inconvenience

~~~
orliesaurus
that elasticity!

------
canterburry
Any chance you will accept Swagger API docs? I have my APIs already documented
in Swagger.

~~~
apievangelist
Using the APIs.json format you can reference any machine readable format like
Swagger. We are currently working on generating Swagger for each of the APIs
currently listed. By February there will be Swagger for most of them listed.

------
numbers
Site is stuck at `loading...`

~~~
caniscrator
worked in chrome.

~~~
numbers
Did it take awhile to load?

I'm on chrome on mac and it doesn't seem to load even after about 5 minutes of
just letting it do its thing.

~~~
njyx
Working again for me now, definitely being hit by a bunch of load.

------
caniscrator
Great. Why is it taking so much time to load ?

~~~
caniscrator
Worked in chrome.

------
matthuggins
Appears to be down or broken.

------
tellor
Nice!

Very interesting facility.

Original with solution to add API in JSON-format and so on.

------
notastartup
gave up trying to add an api.

