Ask HN: Which is your most favorite API?

by avadhoot on 12/15/2022, 9:50:15 AM with 22 comments
What does it do? Make you money? Solve your crucial pain point?

  • by ohadron on 12/15/2022, 10:12:38 AM

    I really like Telegram's bot API. https://core.telegram.org/bots/api

    Helps me automate stuff around my life with a few small apps that connect to Telegram message threads. Summaries from other APIs, smart home functionality, family errands and shopping list reminders with my spouse and more.

  • by JonChesterfield on 12/15/2022, 2:07:10 PM

    Probably pthreads. Makes otherwise very tedious things straightforward and uses predicable naming conventions. For longer justification of it being well done, see https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2010/04/05/pthreads-as-a-case-...

  • by steerpike on 12/15/2022, 10:10:57 AM

    Flickr's API is still the best.

    Does everything you want it to.

    Has a few fun surprises that you didn't expect that make it even more fun to make things with.

    Simple to use.

    Well documented.

    Test playground at your fingertips to experiment with any call you like.

    One of the first APIs ever released and you can still count the number of other available APIs that positively compare on one hand.

  • by dusted on 12/15/2022, 12:58:39 PM

    QT5.. It's so well documented, and just a pleasure to work in. I'm almost never using it though.. I mostly work with the Node API, and some of the larger libraries in the infrastructure, it's fairly okay too.

  • by siquick on 12/15/2022, 11:24:42 AM

    Spotify API - well documented, straight foward to use, and has made it easier for manage my library and make playlists for myself.

  • by xena on 12/15/2022, 12:17:15 PM

    I love the Mastodon API because it lets me write fun bots without having to go through too much toil.

  • by ratg13 on 12/15/2022, 12:49:26 PM

    All of them since it allows me a way to easily interact with my data.

    If a service collects my data, but doesn’t have an API, then I just have to wait to find a comparable service that does.

  • by themoonisachees on 12/15/2022, 9:43:34 PM

    Discord, specifically discord.js. maybe its just that I know it well but I like what and how it does it, and it has had everything I've ever needed.

  • by mharig on 12/15/2022, 8:03:50 PM

    Pythons concurrency module has an as far as possible consistent API between multiprocessing, multithreading and asyncio.

  • by sprobertson on 12/15/2022, 10:22:39 AM

    Github's API solves a crucial pain point of being both consistent and stable when I am trying to teach APIs to students.

  • by iamwpj on 12/15/2022, 5:47:33 PM

    Twilio's. The level to entry is low and things typically work as you would expect, plus docs are on point.

  • by solardev on 12/17/2022, 3:18:17 AM

    Imgix is really fun to use.

    Cloudflare Workers are awesome to work with.

  • by throwayyy479087 on 12/15/2022, 2:58:06 PM

    S3 and Mapbox

  • by gaws on 12/15/2022, 11:39:07 PM

    cURL's API is the best out there.