Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) have grown to be widely adopted by businesses and organizations with projections showing an upward growth curve for the future.
APIs are becoming a go-to for their ease of adoption and integration by varied architectures.
In recent years, research, surveys, and reports have been conducted and have revealed interesting data that can help foretell its future and the current growth so far. This article dives into the latest reports from leading research leaders in the industry to enlighten you on what the API data looks like statistically.
According to independent research conducted by Vanson Bourne in 2021, termed The State of APIs, Integration, and Microservices, APIs were gaining relevance and traction among organizations. The research found that “93% agree that APIs are relevant and essential to the functioning of organizations, while 86% agree that without the use of APIs, organizations would be working in silos, further highlighting their importance.” They noted that APIs could improve the visibility of their key data assets.
The same research found that 97% of the respondents agreed that APIs and microservices complemented each other and would thus make sense to bring them into one bundle for integration purposes to achieve optimum performance. This would thus achieve a myriad of positive outcomes such as; higher customer satisfaction, boosting productivity, and saving time.
State of API Security Q1 2023 Report by Salts Labs reports an explosive growth trajectory for APIs. The report says, “59% of respondents now manage more than 100 APIs, and 25% manage more than 500. This number is only growing, with 27% saying they have more than doubled their API count over the past year. Another quarter said their API numbers increased by 51–100%.”
A white paper research by Black & White under Noname security released in 2022 highlighted the fact that API security continues to be a case of concern for most organizations. Data breaches were reported at 55% and accidental exposure of data at 46%. Inaccurate API inventories also served as a case of data exposure from Zombie APIs cited by 36% of respondents and Shadow APIs at 34%.
Still on API security, the Black & White 2022 research noted that the second most cited issue was API authentication at 37%.
The report states, “The vast majority of respondents (90%) noted that they had policies in place that govern which APIs require authentication. That said, 31% were only somewhat confident that adequate authentication measures were actually in place.”On instituting stable measures to counter API attacks the State of API Security Q1 2023 Report by Salts Labs only 12% of respondents’ organizations have advanced security strategies while 30% admit that they are non-existent or just in the planning stage. However, it’s good to note that these numbers are an upgrade from the 2022 Q3 report showing positive growth in security teams. Obstacles that were mentioned in adopting security measures were: budget (26%), expertise (23%), and people resources (17%).
Projections into the future, according to research by Ponemon Institute in partnership with Traceable AI indicate, 61% of organizations anticipate that API risk will increase or significantly increase over the next 24 months. Just as API growth and usage are expected to grow and evolve so are API security threats.
The above research interviewed 1,629 respondents from 32 countries and reports that 40% of these organizations in this research have adopted a Zero Trust framework and of these respondents, 55 percent of respondents say their Zero Trust strategy includes API security.
According to the 2022 State of APIs report by Rapid API, 62.6% of developers were reported to rely more on APIs than the previous year, and the 2023 projections for the same were expected to rise to 69.2%. This shows the positive adoption of this revolutionary interface into the future.
The 2023 State of API by Postman indicates there was a 3% increase from the last 2 years on the API first approach thus recording 11% from 8%. Financial services had the highest API-first approach. Among the major benefits of this approach were; faster onboarding, increased productivity as well faster integration.
CONCLUSION
Application Programming Interfaces are the future of growth-focused organizations. Such statistics give a glimpse of what needs to be addressed urgently to ensure better productivity, tighter security, and reduced technical debt. This article sourced the best of research and reports to ensure that you get up-to-date and accurate reports on APIs. If your organization is yet to adopt an API-first approach then this is the best time to take the helm and be in control.
The defining factor for organizational success in using APIs will lie in governance and policy outcomes driven toward seamless adoption and tighter API security measures.
Top comments (1)
Great one :)
Happy to see that some of the things we suspect (that developer rely more on APIs every year) is backed by the reports and your analysis.