10x faster implementation time for your API with WunderHub
Karl Baumgarten, Co-Founder @ WunderGraph
We recently announced our public beta for WunderHub, the package manager for APIs. With WunderHub, we have developed an API repository on top of our open source integration framework WunderGraph, which saves developers 90% of time when building integrations.
Think of WunderHub like the GitHub for APIs: Developers can search for and find APIs that fit their needs. Then they can then integrate them into their application with a single command.
Need a weather API? Find one on WunderHub and add it to your application, as easy as “wunderctl add wundergraph/weather” and you are good to go. In this article, we want to share how having your API published on WunderHub does not only benefit users, but also offers new opportunities for API vendors.
Tl;dr: Publishing your API on WunderHub will drastically reduce implementation time of your API and therefore boost your most important metric: time-to-value for your users.
Why sharing API documentation is not enough anymore#
APIs have become the core components of every development project. But when it comes to sharing and implementing APIs, we are still in the stone age.
Even the largest API providers are making their APIs available to developers through a GitHub repository with OpenAPI specs. While this is completely fine in a scenario where you only use one or two APIs, it becomes unmanageable when you are building larger applications. With increasing numbers of API endpoints, versions and variants (REST, GraphQL, OpenAPI), the developer experience gets worse and worse because every API adds technical debt that developers have to manage.
This is a challenge you cannot solve, even if you wanted to. You could have the best API documentation on the planet, but since your API is going to be integrated with other services, there are dependencies that you just can’t control.
Users favor APIs that help then generate value instantly#
But users don’t want to manage those complexities. They want value, and they want it now. That is why time-to-value is the most important metric for any product.
Let’s look at one of the biggest companies in the world for a second - Facebook. Their success comes from the fact that they have optimized everything for getting users to their “a-ha moment” as quickly as possible. For them, it was getting users to 7 friends in 10 days. For you, it is most likely a completely different metric. But in principle it is the same.
Faster value creation for users increases revenue, reduces churn and boosts NPS. Sales will close deals faster, support has to deal with fewer requests and developers have more time to work on core product value.
For API providers, that means that the time from a developer finding your product to them getting value from it should be as short as possible. Today however, this process is much longer than it should be. These are the steps they have to go through:
Time-to-value for developers is 3+ weeks in this scenario.
This is where WunderGraph and WunderHub come into play. We reduce this process to only the most fundamental steps. How we do this is by combining all data sources, APIs and services used for a project into a single GraphQL API and by automating 90% of all the manual and repetitive tasks when building integrations. Developers now only have to use a single API, instead of 10 or more. No more complexity at scale.
With WunderHub, adding a new API to this unified GraphQL API is like adding a Lego block to your Lego house: Developers can search for and find an API for the functionality needed on WunderHub and add it to their WunderGraph application with a single command. It is immediately compatible with all other services and therefore implementation time is reduced by factor 10.
In this scenario, time to value is one day or even less.
WunderHub as a growth channel#
But WunderHub does not only make implementing your API faster for existing customers, it also works as a growth channel to generate new ones. By providing a central platform where developers can search for and integrate APIs with a single command, WunderHub offers a low barrier to entry for new customers. They are just one command away from using your product, so why shouldn’t they give it a try?
Extended insights into product usage#
Another opportunity that this model enables is extended insights into how APIs are used and combined. Since WunderHub provides a centralized platform, reporting is no longer limited to a single API. Want to know which other products yours is integrated with most often? What are other APIs people have tried before committing to yours? Are there any large-scale trends of user behavior that you are not yet aware of? All these are questions that WunderHub can answer.
How you can get started with WunderHub#
WunderHub is currently in public beta and you can start publishing your API today. We have documentation on how you can do that in less than 30 Minutes. WunderHub supports all GraphQL APIs as well as REST APIs using OpenAPI/Swagger specification. Jens did a great video on how to get started, you can check it out here:
If you would like to talk to someone from the team, you are welcome to join our Discord server. We would be happy to discuss your ideas on our Discord.
What to read next
This is a curated list of articles that I think you'll find interesting.
- In the WunderHub Announcement, I talk about how WunderHub will change the way we share and collaborate on APIs. It allows you to share APIs like npm packages.
- How automating API integrations benefits your business is dedicated to C-level executives who want to learn more about the business benefits of automating API integrations.
- Another interesting topic is to JOIN APIs without Schema Stitching or Federation, just by using a single GraphQL Operation
- For those interested in the most common GraphQL Security vulnerabilities, I suggest to read about them and how WunderGraph helps you to avoid them.
- A classic post but still relevant is I believe that GraphQL is not meant to be exposed over the Internet. It's a controversial topic and many misunderstand it. But think about it, why is HTTP not mentioned a single time in the GraphQL specification?
- One very common problem of using GraphQL is the Double Declaration Problem, the problem of declaring your types over and over again. This post explains that it's even more complicated than just double declaration and how we can solve it.
- The Fusion of GraphQL REST and HTTP/2 is a very long post, probably too long for a blog post. But if you're interested in a deep dive on the motivations behind creating WunderGraph, this is the post for you.
About the Author
Karl Baumgarten, Co-Founder @ WunderGraph
As a passionate problem solver, Karl has worked together with some of the largest companies around Europe and the world. Starting his career in software sales, he realized that integration capability is as important as any feature can be and critical to getting the most out of every process and tool.
He believes that integration still is one of the biggest challenges for digital-first businesses and writes about approaches, strategy and business value.
Karl is always happy to connect and to discuss a common interest.