7 Best-Selling API Books Millions Trust for Proven Success

Unlike most API books that simply list protocols, Mark Masse draws from his extensive engineering and architecture background at ESPN and Disney to teach you a disciplined approach to REST API design. You’ll gain clear guidance on URI structuring, HTTP method use, and media type selections, along with an introduction to his Web Resource Modeling Language (WRML) framework that helps model RESTful resources practically. This book suits developers and architects aiming to build consistent, maintainable web services rather than ad hoc APIs. If you want precise rules grounded in real-world web standards, this concise guide offers focused clarity without fluff.

Daniel Jacobson draws on his experience leading Netflix's API engineering to reveal the strategic potential APIs hold beyond traditional programming circles. You’ll explore how APIs can become powerful product channels, learning practical steps to design, implement, and market them effectively. The book breaks down essential roles, legal considerations, security measures, and performance metrics, making it particularly useful if you’re involved in business development or executive decision-making around digital services. Its focused chapters, like the one on traffic management and user experience, give you concrete frameworks to build a robust API strategy that aligns with business goals.

This tailored book explores battle-tested API design and strategy methods that align precisely with your background and goals. It examines the core principles of creating robust, scalable APIs while focusing on your specific interests in design patterns, security, and integration. By combining widely respected knowledge with your unique context, it reveals how to apply proven API concepts in ways most relevant to you. This personalized approach ensures you engage deeply with the material that matters, covering both foundational concepts and advanced techniques to enhance your API development skills.

After analyzing numerous web service implementations, Badrinarayanan Lakshmiraghavan crafted this book to deliver a practical, code-first approach to mastering ASP.NET Web API. You’ll begin with foundational concepts like the web service model and quickly move into detailed explanations of request binding and response formatting, giving you hands-on experience from the start. As you progress, the book introduces advanced topics such as request validation, loosely coupled controllers, and pipeline extension to enhance security and testing. If you’re building or maintaining ASP.NET Web APIs, this book offers clear guidance to deepen your skills and improve your application architecture.

Leonard Richardson's extensive experience in web architecture and API design drives this book's clear focus on practical REST principles that avoid common pitfalls of almost-RESTful APIs. You gain detailed insight into designing APIs that remain flexible and evolve, with chapters covering hypermedia strategies, HTTP best practices, and emerging standards like JSON-LD and CoAP. The book benefits API developers and architects aiming to build robust, scalable web services that leverage the full power of REST, offering concrete examples such as the collection pattern and semantic web profiles to clarify complex concepts.

What started as Filip Wojcieszyn's deep involvement with the ASP.NET web stack became a practical guide for developers tackling real-world Web API challenges. You’ll find detailed solutions for common problems in line-of-business application development, with clear explanations on integrating Web API with .NET tools and external libraries. For example, chapters address building custom web services and optimizing API efficiency, giving you concrete methods rather than abstract theory. If you’re working within the Microsoft ecosystem and want to sharpen your Web API skills, this book offers a focused, code-driven approach tailored to your needs.

This tailored book explores a focused, step-by-step journey to mastering APIs in just 30 days, combining widely validated knowledge with your unique background and goals. It covers essential API concepts and practical implementation sequences designed to accelerate your learning curve. The content reveals clear pathways from foundational principles to advanced topics, matching your interests with proven techniques that millions of developers have found valuable. This personalized guide ensures you don't get lost in generic material but instead engage deeply with what matters most to your API aspirations. It embraces the dynamic nature of API design, development, and deployment through a practical lens that fits your pace and experience level.

When security experts Prabath Siriwardena and Nuwan Dias brought their extensive experience from WSO2 to this book, they crafted a detailed exploration of protecting microservices architectures. You’ll find step-by-step guidance on securing API gateways, managing service-to-service communication with JWT and certificates, and deploying securely on Kubernetes and Istio. The authors don’t just theorize—they provide hands-on Java and Spring Boot examples that illustrate securing both network traffic and code. If you’re developing microservices with intermediate Java skills and want to deepen your security knowledge, this book offers practical solutions backed by real-world practices within complex distributed systems.

Michael Stowe challenges the conventional wisdom that building an API is the hardest part by shifting focus to designing one that lasts. This book dives into modern API design techniques, emphasizing a design-first approach that prioritizes both developer needs and longevity. You’ll find detailed chapters on everything from crafting your API specification using RAML to prototyping, authentication, and managing hypermedia responses. If you want to understand how to create an API that’s not just functional today but robust and adaptable for the future, this is a solid guide tailored to your needs.