The Postman API Network

The Postman API Network is one of the recent movements in the API discovery space I’ve been working to get around to covering. As Postman continues its expansion from being just an API client, to a full lifecycle API development solution, they’ve added a network for discovering existing APIs that you can begin using within Postman in a single click. Postman Collections make it ridiculously easy to get up and running with an API. So easy, I’m confounded why ALL APIs aren’t publishing Postman Collections with Run in Postman Buttons published in their API docs.

The Postman API Network provides a catalog of APIs in over ten categories, with links to each API’s documentation. All of the APIs in the network have a Run in Postman button available as part of their documentation, which includes them in the Postman API Network. It is a pretty sensible approach to building a network of valuable APIs, who all have invested in there being a runtime-ready, machine readable Postman Collection for their APIs. One of the more interesting approaches I’ve seen introduced to help solve the API discovery problem in the eight years I’ve been doing API Evangelist.

I’ve been talking to Abhinav Asthana (@a85) about the Postman API Network, and working to understand how I can contribute, and help grow the catalog as part of my work as the API Evangelist. I’m a fan of Postman, and an advocate of it as an API lifecycle development solution, but I’m also really keen on bringing comprehensive API discovery solutions to the table. With the Postman API Network, and other API discovery solutions I’m seeing emerge recently, I’m finding renewed energy for this area of my work. Something I’ll be brainstorming and writing about more frequently in coming months.

Streamdata.io has been investing in me moving forward the API discovery conversation, to build out their vision of a Streamdata.io API Gallery, but also to contribute to the overall API discovery conversation. I’m in the middle of understanding how this aligns with my existing API Stack work, APIs.json and APIs.io effort, as well as with APIs.guru, AnyAPI, and the wider OpenAPI Initiative. If you have thoughts you’d like to share, feel free to ping me, and I’m happy to talk more about the API discovery, network, and run-time work I’m contributing to, and better understand how your work fits into the picture.