Best toolset/workflow for prototyping and iterating an API?

This page summarizes the projects mentioned and recommended in the original post on /r/node

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  • prism

    Turn any OpenAPI2/3 and Postman Collection file into an API server with mocking, transformations and validations. (by stoplightio)

  • I'd say OpenAPI/Swagger is probably your best bet. If you need OpenAPI mocking, https://github.com/stoplightio/prism.

  • insomnia

    The open-source, cross-platform API client for GraphQL, REST, WebSockets, SSE and gRPC. With Cloud, Local and Git storage.

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  • SurveyJS

    Open-Source JSON Form Builder to Create Dynamic Forms Right in Your App. With SurveyJS form UI libraries, you can build and style forms in a fully-integrated drag & drop form builder, render them in your JS app, and store form submission data in any backend, inc. PHP, ASP.NET Core, and Node.js.

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  • swagger-ui

    Swagger UI is a collection of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS assets that dynamically generate beautiful documentation from a Swagger-compliant API.

  • That's about the API design and specification. Now let's turn our attention to API UIs for visualisation and interaction. API UIs are useful for other people to easily understand your API. Again, quite a variety of choices in this area, but the most common are Swagger UI and Redoc. Lots of frameworks and tools will allow you to render the Swagger or Redoc UI of an OpenAPI spec from the specification document, such as Swagger's editor. And if you're comfortable enough with JavaScript, you can do the rendering yourself using the npm package. A fancier UI is Slate. I don't know whether Slate will automatically generate code samples in every popular language, but it does allow you to write the samples yourself. There're various tools that render a Slate UI from an OpenAPI specification. I believe Postman also allows you to generate a fancy UI.

  • redoc

    📘 OpenAPI/Swagger-generated API Reference Documentation

  • That's about the API design and specification. Now let's turn our attention to API UIs for visualisation and interaction. API UIs are useful for other people to easily understand your API. Again, quite a variety of choices in this area, but the most common are Swagger UI and Redoc. Lots of frameworks and tools will allow you to render the Swagger or Redoc UI of an OpenAPI spec from the specification document, such as Swagger's editor. And if you're comfortable enough with JavaScript, you can do the rendering yourself using the npm package. A fancier UI is Slate. I don't know whether Slate will automatically generate code samples in every popular language, but it does allow you to write the samples yourself. There're various tools that render a Slate UI from an OpenAPI specification. I believe Postman also allows you to generate a fancy UI.

  • slate

    Beautiful static documentation for your API

  • That's about the API design and specification. Now let's turn our attention to API UIs for visualisation and interaction. API UIs are useful for other people to easily understand your API. Again, quite a variety of choices in this area, but the most common are Swagger UI and Redoc. Lots of frameworks and tools will allow you to render the Swagger or Redoc UI of an OpenAPI spec from the specification document, such as Swagger's editor. And if you're comfortable enough with JavaScript, you can do the rendering yourself using the npm package. A fancier UI is Slate. I don't know whether Slate will automatically generate code samples in every popular language, but it does allow you to write the samples yourself. There're various tools that render a Slate UI from an OpenAPI specification. I believe Postman also allows you to generate a fancy UI.

  • WorkOS

    The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS. The APIs are flexible and easy-to-use, supporting authentication, user identity, and complex enterprise features like SSO and SCIM provisioning.

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NOTE: The number of mentions on this list indicates mentions on common posts plus user suggested alternatives. Hence, a higher number means a more popular project.

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