It is common for companies to monitor APIs during production as it is essential to ensure that live API endpoints are functioning properly and providing all the important information to the user. That’s how testing teams get to know if something breaks down and needs to be fixed before the user notices any discrepancy.
But what if consumers find an issue related to API before you get to know. And what if the problem is more serious than slowness? That’s where it becomes essential for businesses to play start and take advantage of API Testing before changes are deployed to production.
Test APIs in staging and development environments must be tested to ensure that the software application meets all the set requirements.
Now the question is, what is API Testing and its benefits? This guide will cover all the helpful information you need about API Testing and help you discover some of the advantages of API Testing over UI testing. So, stay connected to us and read this guide until the end to explore all the helpful information you need to know about API Testing.
What is an API Tester?
API Tester is a mobile app for Android and IOS and helps in testing and using APIs. API Tester allows you to send requests to connect with APIs you are working with. Once a request is sent, the API tester displays a response from the API server to examine it.
Furthermore, an API Tester has a user-friendly interface so that you can interact with APIs using only your mobile device. Hence, you can leave your laptop at home.
An API (Application Programming Interface) provides smooth communication between different platforms in software applications.
What is API Testing?
API Testing is a kind of software testing that verifies application programming interfaces. API Testing confirms that an application’s performance, security, functionality, and reliability are performing as expected.
Difference Between API Testing and UI Testing
You might be wondering how API Testing is related to UI Testing? Let’s find out.
UI testing focuses on the appearance and feel of the user interface, whereas the benefits of API Testing highlight the business logic of the software architecture. In simple words, the advantage of API Testing over UI testing is the confirmation and validity of an API from each angle.
Advantages of API Testing
The following are some of the advantages of API Testing.
1 Access without UI
A significant advantage of API Testing is that you can access the application without a user
interface. This means quality assurance testers can run API Tests without needing to experience the software application.
This is a great advantage because it offers QA engineers an early insight into defects and errors so that developers can resolve the issues before they impact the GUI.
2 Time Efficient
Automated API Tests deliver much faster results and drastically accelerate development workflows. The best thing is that the API Test can be performed early in the agile development cycle. You don’t have to wait for GUI to be ready. That’s how you can speed up the feedback and catch issues faster.
Furthermore, API Tests consume much less time compared to UI tests. Automated API Tests can be executed within a fraction of the time.
On the other hand, for UI-driven tests, a lot more time is spent loading and rendering web pages and interface elements that may not be needed.
3 Less Costs
API Tests save a lot of your cost compared to traditional UI testing. The accelerated execution of automated API Tests leads to more effective resource consumption and much lower overall testing costs.
API Testing allows the QA team to identify and resolve issues before they become a problem in production, keeping project costs at bay. Furthermore, API Tests can be performed at an early stage before any GUI testing. So, the earlier a bug is found, the less costly it is to fix.