DreamFactory API: Overview and Review

We’re living in the age of the app, and that means a proliferation of APIs. Throw in the Internet of Things and you have even more APIs for facilitating communication between objects. Small and medium-sized companies are now creating APIs as well. This is because of lower barriers to entry. There are simply many more companies using API-based business models.

As the API arms race continues, simply having an API is not good enough. Winning companies will be the ones that are first to market with their APIs – meaning that companies must struggle to speed development and save time. Faster development cannot be at the expense of quality, however. Companies that create APIs which cannot expose data securely will alienate their customers and suffer reputational damage.

In short, APIs are proliferating, but it’s possible for them to spread in an even faster and safer manner. The team at Dreamfactory thought the same, and so they built the only solution that generates secure APIs automatically. That’s why their solution is the Editor’s Choice for API solutions.

Things to think about before choosing an API product

Companies have plenty of reasons to create APIs. For example, they might:

•         Have a large store of useful data that they want to monetize.
•         Want to tie their new application into the ecosystem of another vendor
•         Have a legacy application that they can’t end-of-life. They need to tie this application into a modernized app ecosystem without replacing it.

API management products help developers generate APIs that can accomplish these needs. If creating an API quickly is an urgent necessity, then looking for the right management product may seem to be a lesser priority. If you don’t choose wisely, however, the resulting APIs may be lacking in some critical factors.

For example, is the product easy to use? Any time that you spend training developers to use an API management product is time that’s lost from creating the API itself. If speed-to-market is your concern, then you should find the easiest API management product that you can.

Does the product do everything you need it to? Not all API management solutions will be able to create APIs that work in the cloud, on mobile, or on IoT devices. Even those that do might be limited in some respects, which you might find restrictive if you intend to monetize your API, implement live business logic, or create high-availability products.

Lastly, is the product secure? Your API management platform is a gateway into your organization’s most sensitive data. If you’re a bank, insurance, or healthcare company, your API management solution will create tools that sit atop of data that you are required by law to protect. As such, you should be able to carefully control and restrict access to this tool.

About DreamFactory

DreamFactory is the only company that automatically creates APIs that are free, open source and scalable. There’s no coding required and they'll deploy apps instantly. DreamFactory helps speed up the development process by turning any database into a REST API platform.

IT pros get automatic API creation when they connect their database. DreamFactory provides a few key features :

• Scripting agent,
• Maintains high security to protect tech users,
• And includes API logging, limits and reporting features.

Instant deployment. No coding. And killer APIs. It doesn’t get any easier than that.

DreamFactory Pros and Cons

Pros

• API and authentication right out of the box

• Multiple features with free version

• Time-saving attributes when using basic REST API features

• Great security and user documentation

• Straightforward integration to SQL backends

Cons

• Upgrading to a new version can be challenging

• Debugging problems also challenging

• API database query options not as powerful as SQL language options

• Free version doesn't include e-mail, phone or chat support.

Features and Benefits

Security

Security is critical regardless of the interface used. And creating an API is no different. The proper security can be challenging and time consuming to set up properly. But DreamFactory makes it a snap.

Additionally, they have multiple features that help users stay secure when creating APIs:

• User Management
• SSO Authentication
• JSON Web Tokens (JWT)
• Role-Based Access Control on API endpoints
• CORS
• Record-level permissions on data
• LDAP
• OAuth
• SAML Integration
• Active Directory
• And more

API Security

Below is the breakdown of what is available on their three tiers:

Logging and Reporting

DreamFactory helps users stay current via popular logging and reporting on API traffic. No more guesswork. The solution comes with ELK stack (Elastic, Logstash and Kibana) for accurate, up-to-date reporting.

Users get more flexible reporting on every API call. Complete with pre-configured dashboards broken down by:

• Instance,
• Role,
• App,
• User,
• Endpoint,
• API,
• And more.

API Management (available only on the Gold Tier):

Publishing

DreamFactory makes it easy for users to publish their APIs for other people to use. The flexibility of the solution provides exposure to as many APIs an API keys as necessary. Users can also apply role-based control to every API endpoint.

DreamFactory makes it easy to publish your APIs for others to use. You can expose as many APIs and API keys as you need. And apply flexible role-based access control to every API endpoint. DreamFactory makes it easy to API-enable your business with internal stakeholders, business partners, developers, end users, and anyone else who needs secure access to your API.

What do others say about Dream Factory?

Don’t take my word on DreamFactory. Read what others around the world are saying about how DreamFactory has positively impacted their business.

Don’t take my word on DreamFactory. Read what others around the world are saying about how DreamFactory has positively impacted their business.

"Dreamfactory is like Ruby on Rails for APIs," states James S. in his G2Crowd review. He goes on to say:

"DreamFactory provides you commercially ready APIs instantly via what I guess you could call an API Framework. [They make] many of the decisions for you, and intentionally so. Building APIs is mundane and involved. So a tool that moves you through this process fast by automatically providing best practices allows our team to focus on higher value add tasks."

Mark A. remarks on G2Crowd that he "Will actually never need to build an API again." He also said:

"Fastest and easiest API management tool my department has ever used. We used DreamFactory to build the REST APIs we needed for a series of projects. And were able to save tens of thousands of developer hours it would have taken otherwise."

Mark also mentioned that:

"The UI is also very easy and made our particular use case involving turning SOAP services to REST a dream."

Alternatives to DreamFactory

It’s always a good idea to do some checking around before committing to any solution purchase. Those interested in other options to DreamFactory have considered these alternatives:

Postman

Postman is a complete toolchain for API development, designed from the ground up to support API developers. Its intuitive interface sends requests, adds tests, saves responses and creates workflows. API monitoring of APIs, API uptime, accuracy and responsiveness with accompanying detailed reporting. Postman supports all stages—design, testing and full production—throughout the API lifecycle.

Postman workspaces create collaborative teams via enhanced work environments. Work syncs in real time so team members are always working from current data. You can define Team permissions and contributors across multiple workspaces.

• 1,000 free monitoring calls each month for users

• Powerful, built-in tools run requests, debug, test, monitor, create mock servers and document

• Collection formats hold all Postman tools

Spotlight

Stoplight is a visual OpenAPI designer that helps IT pros build professional APIs that provides prototypes and shared APIs in just minutes. Stoplight uses OpenAPI Specification (formerly known as Swagger) with a visual editor to create standardized REST APIs. There’s no need to write code yet pros can model complex APIs quickly while gleaning feedback on prototypes with hosted mock servers.

Stoplight’s visual editor cuts the learning curve so those who aren’t expert in OpenAPI can develop great API designs. Users can instantly share API prototypes, hosted mock servers and automated documentation via a collaborative platform. Teammates, API consumers and partners can comment privately or publicly via discussions.

• Import existing API or create from scratch with a new API

• No coding require

• Visual Editor reduces time to create API design via an intuitive UI

• Describe headers, endpoints, bodies, query string parameters, multiple responses and more.

Cloud Elements

Cloud Elements is an API integration platform that puts data at the center of the application ecosystem. Cloud Elements encourages users to focus on their data and let the solution create important app integrations. Cloud Elements uses a data-centric approach to create its platform of API integration and management.

Cloud Elements creates a unified API layer and standards-based implementation in every environment regardless of the app’s backend—REST, SOAP, Database, Proprietary SDK, etc. Developers, integration users and end users decouple from the backend services. The company’s unique approach of designing one-to-many integration workflows creates more efficient and scalable operations than point-to-point integration patterns from other suppliers.

• Connectivity to leading SaaS and on-premises apps

• Update and support of integrations relieve development teams

• The platform offers 3 key features that help users build and manage application integration

Conclusion

Creating apps is standard operating procedure for so many companies today. If there’s a challenge somewhere, there’s usually “an app for that.” But keeping up with the traffic can be a challenge for IT folks busy creating the best solutions for end users. That’s where DreamFactory comes in.

It’s our favorite API solution because it automatically creates APIs that are free, scalable and simple to use. Just pop in your database and you’re good to go with a secure solution that will work for businesses of all sizes.

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About the author:

Deb Schmidt has been a professional copywriter for 20+ years. She has a heavy B2B background, with an emphasis on high tech with a particular focus on data warehouse solutions.