How did we already arrive at the middle of September?! Let’s take a look at some key API ratings over the past seven days.
We recently launched API.expert as a simple way to provide everybody with insights into the API economy and the leading APIs in different categories in particular.
The basic service is free and will remain free, but other, related services will be built on top of it, including your very own API.expert dashboards if you want them!
Each week, month, and year we’ll look at API ratings in a variety of sectors for their quality CASC score using our patented system (US Patent 10,644,962, if you fancy a little light bedtime reading) that allows you to see the API ratings and compare them to other ones, as well as factors like uptime and availability.
If something is missing in our API ratings that you think should be here, don’t hesitate to drop us a line!
Now, onto what the past week tells us about the state of API ratings during this insane week of an unending year.
API Performance Headlines
To compile our API ratings, we look at more than 200 APIs. Then we pull all the metrics together to give you a general feeling for API quality in a particular category.
We do see that certain providers consistently vie for top spot in their API ratings category, including GitHub and Google. Others do less well, such as Halifax and the NHS.
Top API Ratings – CASC Score
Sept 7-14, 2020
Category |
Organization |
CASC score
|
Corporate
|
Github |
9.62 |
COVID-19 |
COVID-10 Finnhub API |
9.33 |
Cryptocurrency
|
OKEx |
9.20 |
Fintech
|
Stripe |
9.41 |
Search
|
|
9.44 |
Social Networks
|
|
9.70 |
Open Banking – PSD2
|
Nordea Bank |
9.79 |
Open Banking – UK
|
Royal Bank of Scotland (Sandbox) |
9.81 |
Open Banking – UK Open Data
|
Bank of Ireland |
9.78 |
UK Government
|
GOV.UK |
9.44 |
Us Government
|
Department of Justice |
9.62 |
Another volatile week!
- GitHub replacing Box in Corporate Infrastructure
- COVID-19 Finnhub API replacing ECDC in Covid-19
- OKEx replacing Coinpaprika in Cryptocurrency Exchanges
- Twitter replacing Google in Social Network
- Bank of Ireland replacing Allied Irish Bank in UK – Open Banking
Nordea takes the overall title back for the private sector with a CASC score of 9.79.
A CASC score of over 9.00 is very good and one of 9.50 or more exceptional for an API rating. Six of the eleven categories are headed by organization with a CASC score of 9.50 or more this week, the same as last week. Sustaining a CASC score of >9.25 over a period of several weeks is a good showing and congratulations to those organizations that achieved it.
All API rating categories are headed by an API with a CASC score of 9.20, which is certainly a highly acceptable performance.
Top API Ratings – Latency
Sept 7-14, 2020
Category |
Organization |
Median Latency
|
Corporate
|
Microsoft Office |
227 ms |
COVID-19 |
CDC Tools |
168 ms |
Cryptocurrency Exchanges
|
FTX |
209 ms |
Fintech
|
Stripe |
298 ms |
Search
|
|
326 ms |
Social Networks
|
|
58 ms |
Open Banking - PSD2
|
Railsbank |
98 ms |
Open Banking - UK
|
Royal Bank of Scotland (Sandbox) |
148 ms |
Open Banking - UK Open Data
|
HSBC |
78 ms |
UK Government
|
Police.UK |
89 ms |
Us Government
|
Department of Justice |
50 ms |
Worst API Rating Overall
Sept 7-14, 2020
Category |
Organization |
CASC Score
|
Corporate Infrastructure
|
DocuSign |
7.80 |
COVID-19 |
Coronavirus Data API (thevirustracker.com) |
7.04 |
Cryptocurrency Exchanges
|
RadarRelay |
6.97 |
Fintech
|
Nobody below 8.00!
|
|
Search
|
Nobody below 8.00! |
|
Social Networks
|
Nobody below 8.00! |
|
Open Banking - PSD2
|
Nobody below 8.00! |
|
Open Banking - UK
|
Barclays (Sandbox Auth) |
1.02 |
Open Banking - UK Open Data
|
HSBC |
7.98 |
UK Government
|
NHS |
6.73 |
Us Government
|
Federal Communications Commission |
7.52 |
Something of interest
DocuSign is normally a well-behaved API. Yet this week it has plunged to the bottom of the Corporate Infrastructure. OK, its CASC score is still 7.80, placing it high in the Amber Zone, but it is the only API of 16 in Corporate Infrastructure outside the Green Zone. It needs a looking at. What has gone wrong?
DocuSign Failure: Reasons
Now, a thing is and the reason why we only looked at 5xxs in the whitepaper is that slow failures/warnings are not necessarily the fault of the API. Sometimes requests or responses get lost in the network. This is an issue with the network. However, what we saw over the last week with DocuSign was a cluster of slow failures across all of the DocuSign networks we monitor. We didn’t see similar failures with other APIs, so it is likely that the slow failures were due to something inside the DocuSign setup. Sometimes the backend was so slow that the call timed out. As far as the end user is concerned that’s a failure. Sometimes, it might not be your fault, but the internet’s. Here, it clearly looks like it is DocuSign’s fault. This is one reason why you need to active external monitoring. Perhaps the calls are never getting to API gateway and it is a network or cloud issue. But sometimes they might be getting through and it is your backend being slow. You need to know which is which so that you can provide the best service possible to your users. And this is yet another reminder that 200 does not always mean OK. What brought down DocuSign’s CASC score was not pass rate, but number of outliers. There are a lot of exceptionally long calls, some of which timeout. These kinds of problems aren’t necessarily easy to detect by passive monitoring alone, but are much more obvious when you are doing active monitoring that lets you understand how the API is behaving from the end user’s perspective.
Do more with API monitoring!
If you are new to APImetrics, sign up for a free trial so see how they could work for you with our free API set. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out.If you're new to API monitoring, you can learn about our comprehensive features for testing, monitoring, security and performance and sign up for a free trial account.