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Endpoint vs. API
What is what?
Difficulty: Beginner | Easy | Normal | Challenging
Are you using an Endpoint, an API or both? Read this article to really pin down the differences in these terms!
Terminology
API: Application programming interface. A set of accessible tools for building software applications
API Endpoint: The URL of a server or service
Endpoint: An endpoint is a remote computing device that communicates back and forth with a network to which it is connected
URL: Uniform Resource Locator. An address of a web page or resource
What is an API, and what is an Endpoint?
An API is a set of protocol and tools that allow two applications to communicate. The two applications can sit on the same machine (your current Application, that is your Web Browser, communicates with the Operating System on your machine to display this article).
The use of an API means that an interface is public so programs can easily communicate with each other and act in expected ways (forming a contract across the interface).
On the other hand, an Endpoint is a URL that enables the API to access resources on a server, often through a RESTful API interface.
The interface can (as shown above), provide a series of Endpoints that can be called at any time.
Break it down
An API Endpoint is the URL for a server or a service. These APIs operate through responses and requests — that is you make a request and the API Endpoint makes a response.
A simple example of this is this particular Websites and article. The Websites is Medium, and your Web Browser makes a request for the content.
The Endpoint for this particular article is https://medium.com/@stevenpcurtis.sc/endpoint-vs-api-ee96a91e88ca, and this is obtained by the browser making a GET request, and receiving this article in return.
