How to Test a REST API?
Why is API testing important?
APIs are the backbone connecting today’s software applications. Companies make money by selling data and services using APIs or publishing APIs for use by mobile and web applications. However, companies suffer when APIs don’t work. Without API testing you, your partners, and your customers are at risk of losing time, money and credibility.
Your company’s reputation and your customers’ experience can be destroyed by an API malfunction. Excellent API quality needs to be maintained continually to protect the value of your brand. In today’s digital economy, APIs are a crucial factor to achieve success.
These are the key reasons companies that achieve success in the digital economy rely on API testing:
- Reduces time to improve and maintain API quality
- Improves overall customer experience and satisfaction
- Replaces functional testing of legacy desktop applications with faster and more reliable API tests
- Integrates API development into agile development workflows, enabling clients and server teams using a contract-driven approach to start work on independent project parts at the same time.
- Reduces costs of automated tests -- a stable API will improve the stability of the automated test framework
- Increases overall business value of your software and data by reducing API breakage and API malfunction when the API changes
What is the current state of API Testing?
Although the importance and need for API testing is clearly recognized, most companies still do basic API testing. Surprisingly, despite the risks of low-quality APIs, testing is often done manually. Unfortunately, manual or programmatic approaches to complex API testing is time-consuming, ineffective, and expensive. SMB and independent software developers are hit especially hard as they lack both modern API testing workflows as well as the time to do the testing with outdated manual processes.
Where is API Testing going in the future?
In the future, API tools will be able to generate most API tests automatically or with minimal assistance. Even very complex API tests will be generated from high-level descriptions and use cases. API testing technology will not only be able to do the testing, but also create reports of results automatically or on demand.
The automation of API test generation, execution and evaluation will dramatically decrease the learning curve needed to create and operate API tests.
Why is Talend uniquely positioned to address these challenges?
Talend’s mission is to provide you with the fastest and easiest way to deliver APIs. In the new API DevOps culture, testing is crucial. Talend is continually building tools to bring the best API testing capabilities and development practices to everyone involved with API projects. With API Tester, you can visually create very complex scenario-based API tests following Test Driven Development (TDD) and even Behaviour Driven Development (BDD) principles. You can automate execution of API tests with our Maven plugin (compatible with Jenkins and most CI tools) and integrate Talend products into your existing DevOps build, test, and deployment systems.
Today, it is easy and cost-effective to implement an effective API testing strategy. You don’t need to hire a squad of QA engineers to manually test your API. Your skilled engineers no longer have to write API tests, then visually define, share and maintain them. API testing can now be done without having to write a single line of code to test your API!
Despite tremendous advances in API testing, we are still at the very beginning of an API DevOps revolution. We are committed to advance API testing technology until you can get all the tests and result with just a few clicks.
