3rd Party API Integration [Benefits, Our Experience, How-To]

What is a Third-party API?

According to the name, a third-party API means a special program that connects functionalities from different apps. It is provided by a third-party, usually (but not necessarily) large enterprises, to enable you to access their data or software functionalities on your website or application.

An example of this is when a ride-hailing app, such as Uber, integrates a Map functionality from an app like Google Maps to track rides. By implementing a third-party API, Uber saves time on building map functionality from scratch.

Pros and Cons of API Integration

Advantages of Third-party APIs

Enhanced Functionality

API integration allows your application to leverage the features and capabilities of external services. This means you can provide advanced functionalities to your users without having to build everything from scratch. For example, integrating with a payment gateway API can enable secure and efficient transactions within your application.

Increased Efficiency

By integrating APIs, you can automate various processes, reducing the need for manual intervention. This leads to faster and more efficient workflows. For instance, integrating with an email marketing API can automate your email campaigns, saving time and effort.

Scalability

APIs allow you to scale your application by connecting to external systems that can handle increased loads. This is particularly useful when your application experiences growth or fluctuating demand. Cloud services APIs, such as AWS or Azure, can help manage scalability effectively.

Cost Savings

Leveraging third-party APIs can be more cost-effective than developing similar functionalities in-house. This allows you to allocate resources more efficiently and focus on your core business activities. For example, using a mapping API like Google Maps can save the costs associated with developing and maintaining your own mapping solution.

Improved User Experience

API integrations can significantly enhance the user experience by providing seamless access to diverse services. For instance, integrating with social media APIs allows users to log in using their social accounts, simplifying the authentication process and improving user engagement.

Disadvantages of Third-party APIs

Dependency on External Services

Relying on third-party APIs means that your application’s functionality is partly dependent on the availability and performance of these external services. Any downtime or performance issues on the API provider’s side can directly affect your application.

Security Risks

Integrating external APIs introduces potential security vulnerabilities. Ensuring secure data transmission and handling is critical to prevent unauthorized access and data breaches. It’s essential to implement robust API security measures and stay updated with the API provider’s security practices.

Complexity in Integration

API integration can sometimes be complex, requiring a thorough understanding of the API documentation and proper handling of different data formats. Incompatibilities between your application and the API can lead to integration challenges and additional development time.

Maintenance Overhead

Regular maintenance is required to keep the integration functional. This includes monitoring for API updates, handling deprecated endpoints, and ensuring that your integration adapts to changes in the API. Failure to maintain the integration can result in broken functionalities and degraded user experience.

Potential Costs

While APIs can offer cost savings, some third-party APIs come with usage fees, especially for higher tiers of access or extensive usage. It’s important to factor in these costs when planning your integration to avoid unexpected expenses.

API integration offers numerous benefits, including enhanced functionality, increased efficiency, scalability, cost savings, and improved user experience. However, it also comes with challenges such as dependency on external services, security risks, complexity, maintenance overhead, and potential costs. Weighing these pros and cons carefully will help you make informed decisions about integrating APIs into your application, ensuring that you maximize the benefits while mitigating the drawbacks.

Top 7 Most Popular Third-party API

Examples This is a third-party API list of popular examples in common usage both on mobile apps and web apps.

1. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a popular tool for tracking and collecting information on website visitors. It is useful for digital marketers and SEO experts, and it is often integrated into marketing and CRM solutions.

2. Google Maps

Google Maps is, no doubt, the most popular geolocation API, especially for third-party API in Android devices. From ride-hailing apps to online games and even retail companies, Google Maps is widely used across various industries and business leaders trying to create a transportation app.

3. Facebook Login

For businesses whose apps require some form of login and want to avoid data duplication, among the most preferred third-party API examples for user authentication is Facebook Login. It is useful for account creation and data sharing. It’s a particularly popular choice for online game developers.

4. YouTube

Most webmasters prefer to embed videos on their sites via YouTube. For one, it helps to easily track numbers and integrate YouTube analytics directly from blog visits. It also reduces the server load on your website since the video remains hosted on YouTube.

5. Stripe and PayPal

APIs from Stripe and PayPal are among the most common tools for integrating payments into web and mobile applications. They also enable businesses to issue invoices, track payments, and maintain secure records.

6. Skyscanner

This is another business tool popular among companies in the travel industry. The Flights API from Skyscanner is useful for getting flight details, monitoring ticket prices, and even managing revenue.

7. Screen Time

Recently, Apple made its Screen Time API accessible to third-party developers and apps. One of the immediate obvious benefits of this move was granting users access to better parental controls.

How Does a 3rd Party API Work?

To understand how a 3rd party API works, we must first differentiate it from a first-party API. The latter is designed for internal purposes, while the former is an interface that allows you to connect your app to services from other companies.

An API is a reusable communication interface/medium between two apps; it creates shared functionalities and enables seamless, regulated data sharing. In the third-party case, the owner develops an app functionality as an API so that other apps can plug into their app features. To achieve this, integration code is made public as well as API integration documentation concerning its implementation.

Key Benefits of Using a Third-party API

Efficiency

Before now, every new app maker had to build all its functionalities from scratch. However, now, software developers can take advantage of third-party APIs to access functionalities that would have otherwise taken time and effort to build. Therefore, a 3rd party integration helps to save cost, time, and effort.

Avoid Data-Duplication

Google Sign-in enables several apps to use OAuth authorization credentials to manage user profiles. Without such an authorization API for third-party integration, every user has to create a new profile for every sign-up. More so, every company has to manage multiple data from the same sources.

Less Maintenance

A third-party API is easier to maintain. After all, it is owned, managed, and maintained by the company that develops it. For the third party, it is an easy ‘plug and play’ method. If you use third party APIs from a reliable company, then you shouldn’t have any problems since maintenance and updates will always take place seamlessly. What is a 3rd Party API Integration?

What is third party API integration?

It simply means connecting an API from a third-party provider to your own app. The provider continually maintains the API, and the connection is enabled by means of special developer keys. The process requires the expertise of a skilled mobile developer (for third-party API integration in Android or iOS) or a specialist API integration developer.

Why You May Need a 3rd Party API Integration?

For many startups that don’t yet have the resources to build their own complex functionalities, it can come in handy. APIs from established and reliable companies can open up your business to a whole world of possibilities that would have otherwise been inaccessible to your business.

For instance, building a map functionality for an app requires a lot of complex background work, not to mention the highly complicated process of building the app itself. In that instance, a startup is better off using an established third-party API in order to access rich data.

How to Choose the Right 3rd Party API for Your Project?

Documentation

Every software product is usually accompanied by some form of documentation for developers implementing the product in their respective codes. Before choosing a third-party API, ensure that it has detailed documentation with clear information.

Features

Developers turn to APIs for the sake of efficiency. Surely, you don’t want to use two different APIs when one can perform all the functions you need. A good third-party API would have robust but specific features that help you to reach your goal masterfully.

Support

A third-party API is maintained by the provider, not you, the client. Therefore, you have to use tools with excellent provider support. How responsive is the provider? How frequent are the updates? What’s the maintenance schedule like? These questions require answers.

Reliability

This is information gotten from other users who have tried the API. One that is frequently buggy on other platforms would probably not work well on yours too. Keep in mind that unexpected errors have real impacts on service delivery to your customers.

Security

When you use APIs from a third party, you are inevitably sharing data with that provider. Hence, if the provider does not have high-level security and data encryption enabled, your data is probably not safe using that product.

How to Integrate Third-party API?

Hire an API integration developer

Integrating 3rd party APIs can get very tricky quickly for non-developers. Therefore, the best option is to hire a mobile developer or a developer that specializes in such. Of course, if you have none of these on your team, the best option is to use staff augmentation like software development companies such as ProCoders provide.

Consult the documentation

This is the obligatory first step for integrating third-party APIs into your project. The general procedures for integrating an API might be similar to each other, but there are specific concerns pertaining to each one.

Get the Developer Key

APIs usually require a special developer key (basically, an authorization token) to process connections and secure communication. Again, the exact details of how to access the developer key are usually contained in the documentation.

Integration

This is the proper integration stage when you connect it to your app. It establishes secure and regular communications between it and your app. Ensure that you adhere to the security standards as you do so. Most importantly, it functions well and properly with your app. That’s how to integrate third-party API.

Does a 3rd Party API Affect the Final Cost of Your Project?

One of the main benefits is that they help you to optimize resources and time as you boost efficiency. This in turn translates to significant cost savings. Therefore, a functionality that could have taken months to build can otherwise take only a few hours when you choose to integrate an API into your app instead.

This means less money expended on resources (infrastructure) and developers (working fewer hours). Therefore, how does it affect the final cost of your project? It ultimately lowers the cost so that your app can be well-optimized.

Our Experience in Third-party API Integration

Whenever you need to hire web developers and other tech staff – it’s safe to come to ProCoders. As a first-rate software development company serving clients around the globe, one of our key specializations at ProCoders is SaaS product development for startups. ProCoders have been responsible for every stage of software development (research, UI/UX prototyping, software development, API integration for SaaS applications, and live app maintenance) for various SaaS companies.

One of our key capabilities in executing these projects is complex API integration. We have an array of outstanding web and mobile developers responsible for various software projects and that carry out REST API integrations, among others. We understand that developers responsible for the integration usually form part of a team of developers working on the main software.

Therefore, ProCoders provides SaaS companies as well as businesses in other industries with smart teams of outstanding tech talents. Our list of clients includes Frontegg, HANDLE Global, Roth River, Quartz Network, AxisPoint/VSimple, Dryft, and more. Particularly, working with Dryft to create a fitness app using various API integrations is a plus to our reputation as a versatile software development company.

Conclusion

One of the best things an app developer can implement is a scalable API integration; and when it comes from a third party, that’s the best. This is a super-efficient way to extend the functionalities of the app by relying on the resources and infrastructure of another company.However, it is a complex process. Instead, it requires the skill of talented developers, especially as it relates to the rest of your IT team. In this regard, IT staff augmentation service is one of the best ways to build teams for such a project or to scale up an existing team. This is an area in which ProCoders have extensive experience in providing third party API integration services. It’ll be a great decision to reach out to ProCoders for your third-party API integration needs right away.