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12 Comments

Is there a free (or affordable) library/API that can talk to multiple third party services?

For example: a library that can connect to multipe social media APIs or multiple eCommerce APIs and so on (including oAuth).

I believe these are called "unified APIs" but I could be wrong. I did some googling, everything that showed up is prohibitively expensive (like, hundreds to dollars to just get started). I understand it is a lot of work to build an library like this (I suppose that justifies the price they are charging), but surely I am not the first one to think about this? So, has anyone attempted something like this? If yes, could you please provide a link that I can look into?

These are some hosted APIs that I came across (I couldn't find a library that I can use in my projects)

https://www.merge.dev/
https://www.apideck.com/
https://www.useparagon.com/

on November 23, 2023
  1. 1

    Hey,
    I am currently working on ByteChef, an open-source, low-code, extendable API integration & workflow automation platform.
    It is still in active development, though.

    1. 1

      Thank you, this looks great!

  2. 1

    Yes, there are several free and affordable libraries/APIs available that facilitate communication with multiple third-party services. One notable example is Apache Camel, an open-source integration framework that supports a wide range of protocols and data formats. Apache Camel simplifies the integration process by providing a domain-specific language to configure routing and mediation rules.

    1. 1

      Thank you, this looks interesting. Any others that you can remember?

    1. 1

      Looks like this is only for social media

  3. 1

    Some good options I'll explore in the comments.

    I would love a unified API for social media posting (post once...get scheduled for twitter, tik tok, youtube, instagram etc). Unfortunately the companies have made that very hard and expensive.

    And yes there are tools like Metricool but I want to do this programmatically ala API.

  4. 1

    I'm unaffiliated/not paid and not a dev, but i saw this launch on Producthunt yesterday and maybe could be a solution?

    https://www.producthunt.com/posts/revert-3

    Free for 3 connections

    1. 1

      Same issue as the other APIs. Anything that says "talk to sales" is likely not affordable for scrappy indie hackers

  5. 1

    https://www.nango.dev

    Nango is an open unified API: Use the pre-built integrations, or customize and extend them on the platform.

    Open source and has a free tier as well as a starter plan for early stage startups.

    It is more than a library (more like a platform) because building a unified API requires keeping state.

    1. 1

      Looks great, but the pricing page says $250 for just 20 connections, is my understanding correct?

      https://www.nango.dev/pricing

      Does this mean if I connect to 20 Twitter accounts (or any other service), my 20 connections are up? Also, this doesn't look like it is for commercial use, just internal use?

      Edit: Wow, you are the founder of Nango! Do you use some tool to monitor your competitor mentions? It is impressive that you replied so fast, on Thanksgiving day! Thank You

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