API Design
Variants seen in the corpus:
API DesignAPI design
Providers using this tag (45)
Ranked by API Evangelist rating — Exemplar and Strong are expanded by default.
Strong 1 Solid coverage with minor gaps
Developing 8 Usable, with meaningful gaps to close
Thin 10 Limited public surface area
Emerging 22 Early or largely undocumented
Minimal 1 Almost no public developer surface
Unrated 1 Not yet scored
APIs with this tag (34)
Ranked by the provider's API Evangelist rating — the Kin Score is scored per provider, not per API, so every API of a provider shares its band. How the rating works →
Exemplar 2 Complete, well-documented, and agent-ready
Strong 3 Solid coverage with minor gaps
Routebase APIThe public, customer-committed part of the Routebase API — CLI-driven CI test runs, spec versioning and pro...Red Hat Build of Apicurio Registry APIREST API for managing schemas and API design artifacts in a schema registry, supporting formats including A...Accrue Merchant APIThe Accrue Merchant API is a JSON:API-based REST API for embedding Accrue's stored-value wallet into a merc...
Developing 5 Usable, with meaningful gaps to close
MuleSoft Anypoint Design Center APIThe Anypoint Design Center API provides access to the MuleSoft web-based API design environment for creatin...API BlueprintAPI Blueprint is a high-level API design language created by Apiary for designing and documenting web APIs....Apiary APIThe Apiary API provides programmatic access to manage API projects, documentation, and team collaboration. ...API BlueprintAPI Blueprint is a high-level API description language using Markdown-based syntax for designing, documenti...API Blueprint APIThe API Blueprint API is the parsing service operated at api.apiblueprint.org by the API Blueprint project....
Thin 6 Limited public surface area
InsomniaInsomnia is an open-source, cross-platform API development platform by Kong for designing, debugging, and t...Stoplight APIAPI design-first platform enabling teams to write API specifications before implementation, supporting test...Apicurio StudioApicurio Studio is a visual, zero-code API design tool for creating and editing OpenAPI and AsyncAPI specif...TypeSpec CompilerThe TypeSpec compiler processes `.tsp` TypeSpec files and emits output for configured emitters (OpenAPI, JS...Swagger EditorSwagger Editor is a browser-based editor for writing and validating OpenAPI and AsyncAPI specifications wit...Smithy IDLThe Smithy Interface Definition Language (IDL) is a specification for defining API models using shapes and ...
Emerging 18 Early or largely undocumented
APIwizAPIwiz is a low-code, end-to-end API management platform enabling the complete API lifecycle including desi...RAML SpecificationThe RAML (RESTful API Modeling Language) specification defines a YAML 1.2-based language for describing HTT...SpectralSpectral is a flexible JSON/YAML linter and style guide enforcer with built-in support for OpenAPI (v3.1, v...TypeSpecTypeSpec (formerly Cadl) is a language for describing API shapes developed by Microsoft. TypeSpec definitio...Fern Definition and CLICapability area covering Fern's open-source (Apache-2.0) command-line interface and the proprietary Fern De...Stoplight StudioStoplight's API design IDE embeds Spectral natively, surfacing ruleset violations as real-time editor feedb...SpecLynxStop wrestling with OpenAPI specs. SpecLynx OpenAPI Toolkit delivers the most effective way to author and m...SpecLynx ApiDOMA unified semantic parsing engine that underpins all SpecLynx products. ApiDOM parses OpenAPI, AsyncAPI, Ar...SpecLynx EditorA browser-based OpenAPI editor with real-time validation, smart autocompletion, and live preview. No instal...SpecLynx Language ServiceAn LSP-compatible npm library (@speclynx/apidom-ls) providing 13 intelligent editing capabilities for API d...SpecLynx OpenAPI ToolkitA VS Code extension providing semantic editing, real-time validation, linting, and live preview for OpenAPI...Header-Based VersioningHeader-based versioning passes the API version in a custom HTTP request header (e.g., API-Version: 2026-04-...URI Path VersioningURI path versioning embeds the API version in the URL path, typically as the major version number (e.g., /v...Swagger EditorSwagger Editor is an open-source web-based editor for designing OpenAPI specifications that double as test ...JSON:APIJSON:API is a specification for how a client should request that resources be fetched or modified, and how ...OpenAPI SpecificationThe OpenAPI Specification (OAS) defines a standard, language-agnostic interface to RESTful APIs which allow...API Insights AnalysisAPI Insights analyzes OpenAPI specifications (OAS v3, JSON or YAML) and produces detailed scorecards across...Jargon PlatformJargon's collaborative modelling platform for designing, governing, and scaling domain models with generati...
Companies reaching this through an API (6)
These companies publish an API, specification or operation carrying “API Design” but do not classify their business under it. Listed unranked and kept out of the count above, because one tagged operation is not a statement about what a company does.
Score breakdown
Frequency
51.2
log-scaled weighted occurrences
Breadth
1.2
spread across providers
Quality lift
34.6
mean composite of providers using it
Cohesion
14.4
strength of nearest seed neighbor
Related tags
API Lifecycle 8 co-occurrences
OpenAPI 29 co-occurrences
API Governance 8 co-occurrences
JSON-Schema 9 co-occurrences
API Testing 11 co-occurrences
AsyncAPI 10 co-occurrences
API Documentation 7 co-occurrences
API Linting 5 co-occurrences
Where this tag comes from
Provider tag45
Api tag33
Openapi tag1
Cohort brief
Auto-generatedThe 41 providers in the APIs.io catalog tagged API Design, scored on the Kin Score. Every figure below is computed from the catalog — nothing here is written.
Providers
41
all scored
Mean Kin Score
31.9
+8.0 vs catalog 23.9
Mean Agent Readiness
13.4
+1.4 vs catalog 12
Spread
12.8–72.5
median 27.2 · σ 14.2
How the 41 split by band
Exemplar 2Strong 1Developing 8Thin 10Emerging 20Minimal 0
Facet averages, against the whole catalog
| Facet | This cohort | Catalog | Difference | Scored |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contract Governance | 18.8 | 6.4 | +12.4 | 41 |
| Contract Quality | 31.3 | 19.8 | +11.5 | 41 |
| Operational Transparency | 23.5 | 14 | +9.5 | 41 |
| Developer Ergonomics | 31 | 23.4 | +7.6 | 41 |
| Discoverability | 64.8 | 61.2 | +3.6 | 41 |
| Access Clarity | 27.8 | 26.5 | +1.3 | 41 |
A facet is averaged over the members that carry it, not over the whole cohort — the “Scored” column is that count. Averaging an absent facet as zero would score our own coverage gaps as the providers’ posture.
What this cohort publishes
| Artifact | This cohort | Catalog | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| MCP server (any) | 12% | 10% | +2 |
| MCP server (first-party) | 7% | 13% | -6 |
| Agent Skills | 0% | 0% | 0 |
| OAuth scopes | 5% | 11% | -6 |
| Security | 100% | 97% | +3 |
| Arazzo workflows | 5% | 2% | +3 |
| Governance rules | 67% | 14% | +53 |
mcp_pct counts any mcp/ artifact including ones API Evangelist derived from the provider OpenAPI; mcp_first_party_pct counts only servers the provider publishes. Prefer the latter.
Top by Kin Score
Top by Agent Readiness
- 1 Routebase 47.5
- 2 Postman 44.2
- 3 Hey API 34.7
- 4 Zally 30.6
- 5 Stoplight 29.7
- 6 API Blueprint 29.7
- 7 APIOps Cycles Canvas 29.1
- 8 Apidog 28.3
- 9 Speakeasy 28.1
- 10 Apiary 27.2
All 45 members of this roster resolve to a scored provider in
the catalog.Generated from the catalog build of
15 September 2026, across 27661
providers, using the same computation served by the
APIs.io cohort API. Briefs are published for rosters of
5 or more scored providers; below that a distribution is not meaningful.
Work with this as data
Every tag here is available over the APIs.io API and to AI agents over MCP.