The State of API
Consumption
Management
Challenges & trends in consuming
Third-Party APIs
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Introduction
We’re excited to present the inaugural report on API Consumption Management, which examines third-party API usage trends and the challenges companies face in 2024.
The API market has evolved tremendously in recent years, with a primary focus on ingress traffic and API providers. As API usage matures, and AI usage is soaring, software architecture needs to catch up. Consequently, more companies are becoming reliant on egress traffic and APIs, necessitating a more strategic approach to API consumption management and tools.
The results indicate that organizations aren’t prioritizing the strategic monitoring and management of their APIs, and they lack the appropriate tools to do so. As a result, too much time and effort are hidden in the everyday work of developers, with 36% of companies claiming they spend more time troubleshooting APIs than developing new features.
This report surveys over 200 companies, providing a snapshot of the state of API Consumption Management from the consumers’ point of view.
The results indicate that organizations fail to prioritize strategic management of their APIs, and lack the appropriate tools to do so. As a result, too much time and effort are hidden in the everyday work of developers. Additionally, the complexity of maintaining third-party APIs often leads to security risks, hindered performance, and higher operational costs, underscoring the need for dedicated tools.
This report offers insights for refining third-party API governance and management strategies, examining the entire API journey. We hope these findings advance innovation in API management practices for the entire API community.
CEO & Co-Founder of Lunar.dev
What you’ll find in this report
To gain better insights into the current trends shaping third-party API management consumption, we commissioned a survey of 200 software professionals and managers*. This survey aimed to clarify their current API usage, challenges, and priorities.
This survey report examines responses regarding:
Challenges in consuming and troubleshooting APIs.
Resources and developer productivity challenges.
Most consumed APIs by provider verticals.
* The survey is based on responses from decision makers in software engineering, including VPs of R&D, architects, senior developers, developer leads, development managers, senior engineers, integration engineers and platform engineers in companies from 100-1,000 Employees. All responses were collected during February 2024.
Key Findings
- 01
57% reported lacking the flexibility to scale their third-party API consumption as needed, as well as the lack of performance stability under varying loads.
- 04
88% of companies report that third-party API related issues require weekly attention. 33% reported requiring attention multiple times a week.
- 02
Companies lack a proper full journey API stack to deal with various complexities of third-party integrations and API consumption, and as a result patching several solutions or home-grown middleware.
- 05
60% of respondents reported spending too many weekly hours troubleshooting third-party API issues. 36% reported spending more time on troubleshooting than on developing new features.
- 03
66% of companies may be exposed to security risks by under-prioritizing API management, as only 33% reported considering Third-Party API Maintenance and Optimization a "high Priority".
- 06
83% reported top methods to troubleshoot API issues are mainly around monitoring, overlooking optimization opportunities. 42% reported that the primary advantages of implementing optimization for API usage, regard cost-effectiveness.
Try Lunar
Lunar.dev offers a full management suite to monitor and optimize usage of any third-party API. The API consumption gateway enables full L7 visibility and advanced controls for any API.
Gain Full Visibility for Outgoing API Traffiic
Discover and monitor all outgoing API traffic across environments, regions, services or tenants.
Improve outbound security & compliance
Manage your API keys securely using Lunar.dev. Get full logging and auditing for every API call.
Increase your App Reliability by 2X
Using prioritized API access based on business-critical tasks, improve response time dramatically.
Save up to 50% on consumption costs
By implementing smart caching and prioritizing calls.
Lunar.dev brings your architecture up to speed for the modernized tech stack in the age of critical API dependencies in production.
01
Teams reported the lack of flexibility to scale
Prominent Challenges When it Comes to Scaling API Consumption
or down as needed
of scaling
57% Report Scaling Flexibility is a challenge
When asked about the main challenges in scaling third-party APIs, over 50% of engineering teams cited performance, stability, and lack of scaling flexibility.
As products scale and consumption increases, more issues arise, particularly during peak traffic events. To handle these traffic surges, companies need greater flexibility, but they are often constrained by rate limits and costs.
While organizations are projected to increase their PaaS spending by 21.5% in 2024, interesting to see that cost-effectiveness of scaling was only reported by 15% as a barrier.
According to the Treblle Survey of 2023, "The Anatomy of an API":
“Most problems with APIs happen on the client side. Based on HTTP response codes,
client-related errors occur 4x more often than server-related errors."
02
Companies opt for external solutions to manage integrations
How Companies Deal with Rate Limits or Exceeding Usage of Third-Party API
Companies Patch API Rate Limit Solutions
Companies lack a proper full journey API consumption management tool, and as a result patch several solutions or home-grown middleware to deal with rate limits.
Respondents reported dealing with rate limit and usage problems using multiple solutions: developing ad hoc in-house fixes, building dedicated services, or modifying the code that originated the request (54%).
However, 40% of companies lack the proper tooling, time, or resources to prioritize internal solutions, leading them to explore external options for better API traffic visibility and control.
Only 8% rely on open-source solutions.
Lack of Clear Ownership for API Management
When asked who resolves API integration issues, 36% of respondents pointed to the platform team, another 36% to the integration team, and 32% to application engineers. It seems that while platform and integration teams set the tone, engineering will implement it.
Many companies chose multiple options, including team leads, DevOps, and individual contributors, highlighting the lack of clear ownership.
API consumption impacts various areas, including product, business, and engineering productivity. In the future, building a comprehensive proactive API consumption strategy will require a clear owner.
Internal Owner for Resolving API Integration Problems
03
Companies are at risk of unmanaged API consumption
Prioritizing Maintenance and Optimization of Existing Third-Party API Integrations
66% O companies may be exposed to risks by under-prioritizing API management
Companies that aren’t currently managing their third-party APIs effectively may be jeopardizing the performance of their product and consequently business performance as well. This lack of concern is perhaps why API10:2023 - Unsafe Consumption of APIs is now on the OWASP top ten.
95% of companies that currently integrate third-party APIs in their products consider the maintenance and optimization of these integrations either a moderate (62%), or high (28%) suggesting that although most consider it a priority, some may not be prioritizing it sufficiently.
“By using APIs companies can innovate faster and narrow their focus to core business logic. It’s clear that developers today rely heavily on APIs - and with those benefits come challenges. This survey clearly shows that as API consumption scales - cost, performance, security and reliability become hard to manage. It is clear new components are required to navigate the API consumption jungle.”
Iddo Gino
ounder of RapidAPI, Developer Tools Advisor and Investor
04
Top challenges concerning consumption management
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Top Concern Related to Caching, Throttling, and Delayed Queues for Managing Third-Party APIs
29% Report Scalability Challenges as a Top Concern Related to Troubleshooting
The top concerns for engineering teams around troubleshooting - caching, throttling, and delayed queue to manage integrations, are scalability challenges (29%), integration complexity (23%) and maintenance costs (20%).
Of those that require attention once a week the majority are using APIs related to retail & eCommerce (80%), travel & hospitality (66%), advertising (65%) and financial services (51%).
88% of companies encounter problems with third-
party APIs that require troubleshooting on a weeklybasis (Figure 5), either once a week (54%), a few
times a week (33%) or on a daily basis (1%).
Frequency of Troubleshooting
Third-Party API Issues
Troubleshooting Required “Once a Week” by most heavily Used APIs
eCommerce APIs
05
Too much time spent on troubleshooting API integrations
Effort Devoted to Developing New Features versus Troubleshooting
36% of companies allocated more effort towards troubleshooting API issues than developing new features
When asked to compare their efforts on troubleshooting API issues versus developing new features over the past year, 36% of companies focused slightly more on troubleshooting, 30% focused slightly more on development, and 30% allocated equal effort to both.
This highlights the need for robust API consumption management and monitoring to reduce troubleshooting efforts and boost development productivity, allowing more time for feature development and product improvement.
60% of Companies Spent Too Many Hours Troubleshooting
60% Of respondents, reported that their companies are spending too many hours per week on troubleshooting third-party API issues, suggesting that for most companies, integrating third-party APIs is not as straightforward and hassle-free as it should be.
It therefore stands to reason they could free up the time wasted on troubleshooting and spend it on innovation.
This shows a need for a robust solution to streamline managing and optimizing their third-party API usage as they scale.
Time Spent on Troubleshooting
Third-Party APIs
06
Top solutions: monitoring vs.optimizing performance
Top Solutions Currently in Use
35% of Companies use API Management Tools (for ingress not egress traffic)
The top solutions companies are currently using include API management (35%), followed by API Gateways (17%).
These solutions focus on ingress traffic controls for the provider side, while Service Meshes focus on connectivity between services. It seems, therefore, that current tech stacks include solutions that are not focused on API egress controls, and that those that do offer them, do so merely as a feature rather than as a primary focus.
38% of Companies Focus on End-point Monitoring
The top methods reported used to troubleshoot and maintain third-party APIs in the past year (Figure 9): Endpoint performance monitoring (38%), costs limitations/monitoring (35%) and monitoring breaking changes (34%).
Based on these findings, it seems that the majority of companies are not sufficiently ensuring they have proper visibility and monitoring of their third-party APIs.
When looking at the breakdown of respondents who identified load balancing across providers/ accounts/ tokens as a top method (Figure 10), individual contributors and managers mentioned this method at a much higher rate (31%) than directors (14%) and VPs (13%), pointing to it as an effective solution more than the executives who don’t deal with troubleshooting themselves.
Top Methods Used to Troubleshoot and Maintain Third-Party APIs in the Past Year
Load Balancing across providers/accounts/tokens by Job Seniority
Top Solution Methods used:
Queue Management
and Orchestration
and Retry Logic
Monitoring solutions clearly out-win all others
83% reported top methods to troubleshoot API issues are mainly around monitoring, overlooking optimization opportunities. The top advantage identified by respondents suggests there is a rise both in awareness and urgency for managing third-party APIs cost effectively.
Interestingly, 38% of respondents use rate limiting and queue management techniques, indicating a moderate focus on managing API traffic compared to the monitoring related solutions. But, without integrating these methods with robust error handling, their effectiveness might be limited.
Looking forward, as API integrations become more complex, it’s likely that companies will need to balance their strategies. Incorporating more preventative measures alongside monitoring could lead to fewer disruptions and more resilient API systems.
42% Report Cost-effectiveness is the Primary Advantage of Optimization
The top advantage identified by respondents suggests there is a rise both in awareness and urgency for managing third-party APIs cost effectively.
The primary advantages of implementing optimization techniques such as caching, throttling, and delayed queue for managing third-party APIs include cost-effectiveness (42%), faster response to organizational needs (35%) and improved integration with existing systems (29%).
Primary Advantages of Optimization Through Caching, Throttling, and Delayed Queue for Managing Third - Party APIs
“As the API economy matures, it will be interesting to see how this new category of API consumption management evolves to enhance and streamline software development. I recommend technology leaders keep an eye on this evolving space to learn the practices required to finally see the entire API journey.”
Bill Doerrfeld
Editor in Chief for Nordic APIs stresses the importance of looking at the entire API journey end to end
Confidence in the Ability of API Management Tools to Reduce Overhead Costs
Unlocking Smart Cost-effectivness
We asked respondents, to what extent they agree or disagree with the notion, that since API management tools help manage errors in production – having access to such tools could significantly reduce their overhead costs.
Although almost half of the respondents (47%) somewhat agree with this statement, only 6% strongly agree. This may be an indication that a significant portion of companies are not confident that existing API management solutions in the market (which are mostly associated with ingress management for the APIs companies provide) would help to reduce their overhead costs of third-party API consumption.
Recommendations
API Consumption Management built for Scale and the AI Era.
The following are recommendations for scaling companies based on the findings in this report
Streamline monitoring and maintenance:
To reduce time spent fixing API integrations, organizations must develop a comprehensive egress API consumption strategy, mirroring the existing inbound API security practices.Gain flexibility:
To scale API consumption flexibly as needed, organizations must implement a centralized control plane for managing and governing all outbound data traffic. This must be done to increase awareness of third-party API consumption with minimal footprint.Once and for every end-point:
Evaluate and implement tactics for optimizing API usage like caching, client-side rate limiting, and circuit breaker implementations for existing and future integrations with API Consumption tools.Cost-effectiveness is seen as a top advantage: Organizations should consider investing in egress management tools to gain visibility into patterns to optimize costs and identify potential bottlenecks.
Spread the Word: Share the 2024 Status of API Consumption Management
The discussion and researched information around API Consumption Management is still in its early days though it impacts many companies.
By sharing this report, you contribute to the conversation around third-party API challenges and trends, empowering more professionals to make informed decisions. Together, we can drive innovation and efficiency in the industry.
Here are a number of tweets you can use to share the survey:
Dive into the 2024 State of API Consumption Management report! Uncover the latest trends and challenges in consuming third-party APIs. Download it now and stay ahead of the curve! #APIManagement #TechTrends
Read the 2024 State of API Consumption Management report. Essential insights for anyone dealing with third-party APIs. Check it out! #APIs #TechInsights
🚀 The 2024 API Consumption Management report is here! Get the lowdown on key trends and challenges. A must-read for tech professionals. #TechReport #Innovation
Methodology
To get more insight into current trends shaping
third-party API management, we commissioned a survey of 200 software professionals administered by an independent global research firm.
The survey is based on responses from decision makers in software engineering, including VPs of R&D, architects, senior developers, developer leads, development managers, senior engineers, integration engineers and platform engineers.
Respondents hailed from companies in the US (80%), UK (10%), Germany (5%) and Scandinavia (5%), ranging in size from 100-1,000 Employees, or with R&D teams of 50-500 developers.
All responses were collected during February 2024.
Demographics
Country, Industry, Company Size and Job Seniority
Industry
Most Used Types of APIs
Industry
Company Size (of people)
199
499
999
4,999
Job Seniority
Number of Developers
Company's Approach to Application and Deployment
Third-Party APIs Used in Production Environment
Transport & Logistics APIs
Travel & Hospitality APIs
Retail & eCommerce APIs
Insurance APIs
Financial Services APIs
AI/LLMs APIs
CRM APIs
HR-tech APIs
Messaging APIs
Advertising APIs
Open Banking APIs
Lunar.dev offers a full management suite to monitor and optimize usage of third-party APIs at scale. Its Consumption Gateway enables full L7 visibility and
advanced controls for every API.
For more information please visit us
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