Welcome to ProgrammableWeb's Research Center; your one stop shop for the various charts and research that we maintain regarding the API economy. In recognition of how ProgrammableWeb's audience members like to re-use our charts in their presentations and whitepapers, we offer some of our charts as PowerPoint decks that can be downloaded from Slideshare.net (further below). Other articles (also listed below) have charts embedded in them. Newer (fresher) data and charts as well as custom queries of our database may be available on request. Some requests may involve a fee.
To download any one of the Slideshare decks (all of which represent older data and queries), click on the Slideshare logo on the bottom left-hand corner of the viewer. This will take you to the same deck as it appears on Slideshare. From there, press the "Save" button and the deck will be downloaded to your system.
Starting in 2017, ProgrammableWeb now endeavors to release new research on a monthly basis. Some of that research is also listed below (but not available through Slideshare). The easiest way to see the complete list of reports that are dated 2017 and beyond is to view the complete list of our research articles.
Thanks for checking out the research center!
The ProgrammableWeb Team
JSON is Clearly the King of API Data Formats in 2020
What data formats do API developers turn to when building APIs? Is JSON the dominant format while XML is a relic of the past? What do the data formats tell us about modern APIs? This article looks at our directory data to see what data formats are the most popular choices among API providers.
Which Are Developers Favorite APIs?
Which APIs are the most popular with developers? There are a lot of ways to come to an answer; this month we are using our directory data to offer one. Every API in our directory has a track functionality and by looking at the data we can see which APIs our readers have shown the most interest in.
APIs show Faster Growth Rate in 2019 than Previous Years
The ProgrammableWeb directory eclipsed the 22,000-API mark in June 2019 and this milestone gives us a chance to look at what the data can tell us about the API economy. The directory has seen new APIs added at a 30% increase over the previous four years signaling that the API economy remains strong.
API Providers With the Most SDKs and Sample Code Listings
Which API providers do the best job of giving their developer community the tools needed to quickly get up and running with their APIs? In this analysis of our directory, we show how our data model allows for us to query our database and find out which providers offer the most SDKs and Code Samples.
Java the Most Popular Language, Swift Showing Greatest Growth in ProgrammableWeb Directories
Which programming language is the most popular with developers? In the past we’ve looked to our directories to provide some insight into which language is most in demand. The recent growth of our SDK and Sample Source Code directories gives us an opportunity to take a fresh look at the data.
What Does a Push/Streaming API Look Like?
While the majority of the APIs within the ProgrammableWeb directory are REST-styled APIs, that isn't the only architectural style in use, not by a long shot. In this article we look at our directory data to see what underlying technologies are most popular across the various Push/Streaming APIs.
Data, Financial, Analytics API Categories See Big Growth
One of the cool things our directory data allows us to do is to get a glimpse at both short term and long term trends in the API space. One slice of data worth looking at is the categories have had the most growth. This article looks at which categories have grown the most in the last five years.
Social and Financial Among the Most Popular API Categories
One of the more interesting views given by the directory is a look at what sectors are seeing the most growth in APIs. The directory data model allows for one primary category as well as multiple secondary categories and in this article we take a look at which categories are most represented.
ProgrammableWeb's Most Popular APIs of 2017
Previously we looked at APIs that readers follow the most using our tracking functionality. This time we measured the APIs readers show interest in by counting the number of times a user clicks an outbound link to a provider's site. This is a metric that may better signal developer interest.
Spotting API Security Trends in ProgrammableWeb's API Directory
Over the years, ProgrammableWeb has tracked the various ways that API providers have used to authenticate their APIs in an effort to make API communications more secure. In our data model, we refer to these methods as Authentication Models. This article looks at the most popular methods used.
Most Popular Government API Categories
We saw earlier this year that the Government category was one of the most popular API categories within our directory. But what sections of government and what kinds of data are being made available via API? In this article we look at the ten most popular categories related to government APIs.
Which API Types and Architectural Styles are Most Used?
One of the great things about our directory data model is that it allows us to get a big picture view of what an API looks like in today’s world. This month we consider the data in the API type, architectural style and scope fields to see what it tells us about the APIs in our directory.
New Research: Telecom API Market Outlook and Forecasts
The telecom API market enjoyed significant growth over the last five years. That growth is expected to continue for the next five years, but the opportunities and technologies driving the growth moving forward are significantly different than those that have driven the market to its current state.
Which Are Developers Favorite APIs?
Which APIs are the most popular with developers? There are a lot of ways to come to an answer; this month we are using our directory data to offer one. Every API in our directory has a track functionality and by looking at the data we can see which APIs our readers have shown the most interest in.
Financial APIs Have Seen Two Growth Spikes
When we first looked at the fastest growing API categories of recent years, Financial and Payments both made the list. We've seen a number of signals that there is great interest in API related to Finance so we decided to take a deeper look at the category's growth this month.
How Fast are Bitcoin and Blockchain APIs Growing?
Cryptocurrency has been around since 2009 when bitcoin was first open-sourced. A recent rally in the price of bitcoin got us wondering if there has been a similar surge in developer interest in bitcoin. This article uses our directory data to look at the growth of APIs in this space.
SDKs and Code Examples Are ProgrammableWeb's Fastest Growing Directories
After ProgrammableWeb's platform migration and launch of a new directory data model, a major directory change was to separate SDKs from Libraries and Frameworks. In this post we look at the growth of the SDKs and Sample Source Code directories paying extra attention to the last couple of years.
ProgrammableWeb API Directory Eclipses 17,000 as API Economy Continues Surge
The ProgrammableWeb directory eclipsed the 17,000-API mark in the first quarter of 2017 and this milestone gives us a chance to look at what the data can tell us about the API economy. This article, the first in a series of looks into our directory data, examines the overall API growth trend.
Older Research Available via Slideshare.net
Growth in Web APIs From 2005 to 2013
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Fastest Growing Web API Categories Since 2009
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Fastest Growing API Categories Over Last 6 Months (ended December 2013)
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ProgrammableWeb's eSignature APIs Research Report
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