From 200+ APIs to actual working integrations — building Apives into a real dev workflow
A few weeks ago, I shared Apives here as a curated API directory.
Since then, I’ve been using it daily for my own projects…
and realized something important:
Finding APIs is easy.
Understanding and integrating them is the real problem.
So I stopped treating Apives like a “list”
and started building it like a developer tool.
What changed since last time:
→ 200+ APIs (manually curated, not scraped)
APIs like OpenAI, Stripe, Twilio, GitHub, OpenWeather, CoinGecko, Discord, resend , claude , etc.
Each one reviewed for docs, pricing clarity, and real usability.
→ Live API Request Runner
You can hit endpoints and see JSON responses instantly
(no Postman, no setup)
→ Quick Start Integration
Copy-paste ready code snippets (Python, Node, cURL, etc.)
so you don’t spend 30 minutes just making the first request work
→ AI & API Radar
Tracks new launches in AI models, APIs, and tools
(so you don’t miss what’s actually trending)
What I’m trying to solve:
The gap between:
“I found an API” → “It works in my project”
That gap is where most time gets wasted.
How I use it now:
Idea → find API → test it → copy code → build
No tab chaos. No guesswork.
Still early, but improving fast based on feedback here.
Curious about your workflow:
How do you currently discover APIs?
Do you test APIs before integrating?
What’s the most frustrating part of using third-party APIs?
If this sounds useful, you can check it here:
apives.com
The evolution from "list of APIs" to "developer workflow tool" is the right move — it mirrors a pattern I've seen work well in other spaces. The directory alone is a commodity; the value is in reducing the time between "I need this capability" and "it's working in my codebase."
Building our own SaaS, we integrate with about 6 different APIs (Stripe, Claude API, image generation, email, etc.) and the pain you're describing is real — especially the gap between reading docs and getting the first successful request. The worst offenders are APIs where the getting-started guide assumes you already understand their auth model, and you spend 45 minutes debugging a 401 before writing any real code. Having a live request runner that lets you validate your understanding before touching your codebase would have saved us hours during initial setup.
One thought on the API Radar feature: for indie hackers and small teams, the most useful signal isn't just "what's new" but "what just got meaningfully cheaper or added a free tier." A lot of us make API choices based on pricing at our scale, and those changes are almost impossible to track manually. If Apives surfaced pricing changes alongside new launches, that could be a real differentiator.
Apives is evolving from a simple API directory into a practical developer tool that helps bridge the gap between discovering an API and actually integrating it into real projects using live testing and ready-to-use code snippets. In my opinion, tools like this save developers a lot of time by simplifying API discovery, testing, and integration in one workflow instead of juggling multiple platforms.
It's live runner feature is amazing 🤩