The apidays API Landscape Tool
At our December Paris event, we released our latest API landscape, collecting over 1,000 API tools, open-source projects, and providers in one ecosystem map.
We made the first draft of our API Industry landscape in 2017: at the time, we identified only a hundred companies, our next iteration grew to 200, then 500 to arrive today to 1000+ companies in 2022.
We have followed their trends, growth, funding, product shift, feature enhancements, and communication outreach to give you an exclusive insight into what to expect in this industry. As developers, architects, product managers, platform owners, Executive leaders, consultants, investors, and API startup founders, the API Landscape and this report will help you to navigate a complex but fascinating industry that is shaping the digital infrastructure we depend on. APIs will provide the foundation for the next generation of digital-native businesses in the 21st century.
By the end of 2021, the API industry had generated $175 Billion in investment and was worth at least $12 Trillion
In our Landscape, we categorize API-related tools into 5 categories. Each category is then also divided into sub-categories based on the functionalities of the tools.
The digital transformation and API-ification of businesses and organizations have led us to a programmable economy where growth-focused businesses leverage APIs. As a result, businesses of all sizes are turning to API tools to help them manage APIs as part of their tech stack: both as the infrastructure layer and as components in automated, internal business workflows, and external, end user-facing products and services.
From this core role of APIs, as 2022 starts, we have identified 5 key trends:
- The explosion of tech regulations will impact the API industry: The API industry will need to be able to map regulatory impacts on their feature set and on their customer needs as global and local tech and data regulations increase.
- Industry-specific solutions emerge in banking, government, insurance and healthcare: With increased regulatory environments requiring API management, some API management service providers are creating accelerators and specific offerings to meet industry-specific needs.
- API Security is now a standalone product. Privacy is the next differentiation maker: There is some blurring of boundaries between API security, access, and identity management, API testing, and API analytics and metrics. This unbundling and rebundling of security-related features is expected to continue over the coming year as security products extend to meet all possible threat vectors. Regulatory compliance products are expected to follow a similar trajectory in 2022, especially as data management platforms expand as a separate grouping to traditional API management platforms.
- APIs are a new layer of business and tech infrastructure: As data usage and digital infrastructures increase and become the norm, product APIs will become essential infrastructure products utilized by all businesses. We expect to see a growth in both data products being made available via API, but also increased services and functionalities being made available via API.
- Low code and the growth of citizen developers are enabled by APIs: We expect to see a greater range of tools and more API integration platforms over the year ahead as API management solutions and other API tool providers increasingly add low code features so that non-engineering team members can make use of APIs directly.
We describe each of these trends in greater detail in our API Industry State of the Market Report 2022.
Check out the apidays API Landscape and download our State of the Market Report. Let us know what data you would like to see us track on the API industry, and make sure your API tool is listed in our landscape database. We will be updating trends and landscape maps throughout 2022 at each of our events, starting with our Helsinki and North event on March 16 & 17.
