2018 Postman State of the API Report

Postman surveyed its community of API developers earlier in 2018 to better understand developers' workflow, pain points, and where the API space is headed. The study was distributed to the entire Postman community, which currently numbers nearly 5 million users of Postman.

Postman 2018 API Survey. Illustration.

Who took the survey?

The survey respondents reflect the Postman community, which is a pretty technical bunch, and a pretty API-focused bunch. The vast majority are technical - developers, engineers, and technical management, and most of them spend 10+ hours a week with APIs. These are API power users, by any measure.

Who took the survey?

2018: Hours spent with APIs

70%of developers spend less than 20 hours/week with APIs

Public vs. Private

Our community uses all three types of APIs - Public, Private, and Internal.More than halfof all the APIs used are internal, private entities.

API Reliability

Developers are evenly split: about half think APIs don't break often enough to matter, the rest think APIs break regularly or too frequently

50%of developers are not bothered by APIs breaking

API Security

Developers in 2018even more confidentin API security.

API Documentation

Developers in 2018even more confidentin API documentation.

Exciting Technology

Postman developers are most interested in working withmicroservice, containers, and serverless architecturetechnologies.

Sources of Learning

Most of the developers in our community have learned a majority of their API knowledge from their work on-the-job or from other colleagues.

How do you pronounce "API"?

Developers

82%of developers say "AAY-PEE-EYE."

Friends & Family

63%of our family/friends have no idea.

Star Trek vs. Star Wars

The community has spoken and the dominating sci-fi universe is with Star Wars. May the force be with you!

76%of respondents are more Star Wars fans than Star Trek.

Postman logo lockup horizontal. Illustration.

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