What Is an API—An Ultimate Guide

Learn what is an API and why are APIs necessary

Artturi Jalli
Geek Culture
Published in
12 min readJul 27, 2021

--

Original Image: Anasal Shanti

API or Application Programming Interface allows communication between applications.

An API is not a server. Instead, it’s an intermediary software that is used to access it.

When you look up the weather from your smartphone or desktop, the browser talks with an API under the hood. Here is an illustration of APIs:

API is an access point to database and server

When you hear the word API, it usually refers to a web API. This article is no exception in that regard.

How an API Works

An API defines a set of rules on how applications can communicate with one another. API is the middleman between an application and a web server. It’s responsible for forwarding the requests from an application to a server and vice versa.

Here’s how API requests work:

  1. A browser makes an API call to retrieve data from a web server. This can be weather data for example.
  2. The API in front of the server catches the request and calls to the server and asks for the data.

--

--

Artturi Jalli
Geek Culture

Youtube: @jalliartturi to take your blog to the next level