---
layout: default
section: Guidance
title: History of APIs
summary: Where the modern web API came from, who built it, what got forgotten, and why the patterns keep repeating.
nav: Guidance
sub: History of APIs
---

<div class="row gx-xl-9">
  <div class="col-12">
    <section>

      <h1 class="fs-3 mb-2">{{ page.title }}</h1>
      <p class="lead text-muted mb-5">{{ page.summary }}</p>

      <!-- Before the Web API -->
      <h5 class="fw-semibold text-muted mb-3 mt-2 pb-1 border-bottom">Before the Web API</h5>
      <div class="row mb-4">
        <div class="col-md-6 col-lg-4 mb-3">
          <div class="card h-100 border-0 shadow-sm">
            <div class="card-body">
              <h2 class="fs-6 mb-1"><a href="https://guidance.apievangelist.com/store/rpc/" class="text-decoration-none">RPC</a></h2>
              <p class="text-muted small mb-0">Remote Procedure Call, the precursor model to modern web APIs.</p>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-md-6 col-lg-4 mb-3">
          <div class="card h-100 border-0 shadow-sm">
            <div class="card-body">
              <h2 class="fs-6 mb-1"><a href="https://guidance.apievangelist.com/store/corba/" class="text-decoration-none">CORBA</a></h2>
              <p class="text-muted small mb-0">Common Object Request Broker Architecture, the heavyweight distributed computing predecessor.</p>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-md-6 col-lg-4 mb-3">
          <div class="card h-100 border-0 shadow-sm">
            <div class="card-body">
              <h2 class="fs-6 mb-1"><a href="https://guidance.apievangelist.com/store/edi/" class="text-decoration-none">EDI</a></h2>
              <p class="text-muted small mb-0">Electronic Data Interchange, the original machine-to-machine business integration.</p>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
      </div>

      <!-- Birth Era (1999–2005) -->
      <h5 class="fw-semibold text-muted mb-3 mt-2 pb-1 border-bottom">Birth Era (1999–2005)</h5>
      <div class="row mb-4">
        <div class="col-md-6 col-lg-4 mb-3">
          <div class="card h-100 border-0 shadow-sm">
            <div class="card-body">
              <h2 class="fs-6 mb-1"><a href="https://guidance.apievangelist.com/store/salesforce/" class="text-decoration-none">Salesforce</a></h2>
              <p class="text-muted small mb-0">The first major enterprise SaaS company to open its platform via API in 2000.</p>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-md-6 col-lg-4 mb-3">
          <div class="card h-100 border-0 shadow-sm">
            <div class="card-body">
              <h2 class="fs-6 mb-1"><a href="https://guidance.apievangelist.com/store/ebay/" class="text-decoration-none">eBay</a></h2>
              <p class="text-muted small mb-0">An early adopter of the marketplace API model enabling third-party commerce.</p>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-md-6 col-lg-4 mb-3">
          <div class="card h-100 border-0 shadow-sm">
            <div class="card-body">
              <h2 class="fs-6 mb-1"><a href="https://guidance.apievangelist.com/store/amazon/" class="text-decoration-none">Amazon</a></h2>
              <p class="text-muted small mb-0">The e-commerce and cloud company that bet its entire platform on APIs.</p>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-md-6 col-lg-4 mb-3">
          <div class="card h-100 border-0 shadow-sm">
            <div class="card-body">
              <h2 class="fs-6 mb-1"><a href="https://guidance.apievangelist.com/store/flickr/" class="text-decoration-none">Flickr</a></h2>
              <p class="text-muted small mb-0">The social photo platform whose API defined the mashup era.</p>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-md-6 col-lg-4 mb-3">
          <div class="card h-100 border-0 shadow-sm">
            <div class="card-body">
              <h2 class="fs-6 mb-1"><a href="https://guidance.apievangelist.com/store/delicious/" class="text-decoration-none">Delicious</a></h2>
              <p class="text-muted small mb-0">The social bookmarking service that helped popularize REST and tagging via API.</p>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
      </div>

      <!-- Platform Era (2006–2012) -->
      <h5 class="fw-semibold text-muted mb-3 mt-2 pb-1 border-bottom">Platform Era (2006–2012)</h5>
      <div class="row mb-4">
        <div class="col-md-6 col-lg-4 mb-3">
          <div class="card h-100 border-0 shadow-sm">
            <div class="card-body">
              <h2 class="fs-6 mb-1"><a href="https://guidance.apievangelist.com/store/twitter/" class="text-decoration-none">Twitter</a></h2>
              <p class="text-muted small mb-0">The platform whose API both enabled and then constrained an entire ecosystem.</p>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-md-6 col-lg-4 mb-3">
          <div class="card h-100 border-0 shadow-sm">
            <div class="card-body">
              <h2 class="fs-6 mb-1"><a href="https://guidance.apievangelist.com/store/facebook/" class="text-decoration-none">Facebook</a></h2>
              <p class="text-muted small mb-0">The social platform that pioneered the platform API strategy and its consequences.</p>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-md-6 col-lg-4 mb-3">
          <div class="card h-100 border-0 shadow-sm">
            <div class="card-body">
              <h2 class="fs-6 mb-1"><a href="https://guidance.apievangelist.com/store/google/" class="text-decoration-none">Google</a></h2>
              <p class="text-muted small mb-0">The company whose API sprawl shaped both developer expectations and governance challenges.</p>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-md-6 col-lg-4 mb-3">
          <div class="card h-100 border-0 shadow-sm">
            <div class="card-body">
              <h2 class="fs-6 mb-1"><a href="https://guidance.apievangelist.com/store/twilio/" class="text-decoration-none">Twilio</a></h2>
              <p class="text-muted small mb-0">The cloud communications company that proved the API-as-product business model.</p>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-md-6 col-lg-4 mb-3">
          <div class="card h-100 border-0 shadow-sm">
            <div class="card-body">
              <h2 class="fs-6 mb-1"><a href="https://guidance.apievangelist.com/store/stripe/" class="text-decoration-none">Stripe</a></h2>
              <p class="text-muted small mb-0">The payments company that set the modern bar for API developer experience.</p>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-md-6 col-lg-4 mb-3">
          <div class="card h-100 border-0 shadow-sm">
            <div class="card-body">
              <h2 class="fs-6 mb-1"><a href="https://guidance.apievangelist.com/store/aws/" class="text-decoration-none">AWS</a></h2>
              <p class="text-muted small mb-0">Amazon Web Services that turned infrastructure into programmable API primitives.</p>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-md-6 col-lg-4 mb-3">
          <div class="card h-100 border-0 shadow-sm">
            <div class="card-body">
              <h2 class="fs-6 mb-1"><a href="https://guidance.apievangelist.com/store/foursquare/" class="text-decoration-none">Foursquare</a></h2>
              <p class="text-muted small mb-0">The location API company at the center of the mobile-social API era.</p>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-md-6 col-lg-4 mb-3">
          <div class="card h-100 border-0 shadow-sm">
            <div class="card-body">
              <h2 class="fs-6 mb-1"><a href="https://guidance.apievangelist.com/store/instagram/" class="text-decoration-none">Instagram</a></h2>
              <p class="text-muted small mb-0">The photo-sharing platform that rose and closed its API in a cautionary arc.</p>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
      </div>

      <!-- Service Provider Layer -->
      <h5 class="fw-semibold text-muted mb-3 mt-2 pb-1 border-bottom">Service Provider Layer</h5>
      <div class="row mb-4">
        <div class="col-md-6 col-lg-4 mb-3">
          <div class="card h-100 border-0 shadow-sm">
            <div class="card-body">
              <h2 class="fs-6 mb-1"><a href="https://guidance.apievangelist.com/store/mashery/" class="text-decoration-none">Mashery</a></h2>
              <p class="text-muted small mb-0">One of the first API management platforms, shaping the commercial API layer.</p>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-md-6 col-lg-4 mb-3">
          <div class="card h-100 border-0 shadow-sm">
            <div class="card-body">
              <h2 class="fs-6 mb-1"><a href="https://guidance.apievangelist.com/store/3scale/" class="text-decoration-none">3Scale</a></h2>
              <p class="text-muted small mb-0">The open-source-friendly API management platform acquired by Red Hat.</p>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-md-6 col-lg-4 mb-3">
          <div class="card h-100 border-0 shadow-sm">
            <div class="card-body">
              <h2 class="fs-6 mb-1"><a href="https://guidance.apievangelist.com/store/apigee/" class="text-decoration-none">Apigee</a></h2>
              <p class="text-muted small mb-0">The API management leader that defined enterprise API gateway practices.</p>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-md-6 col-lg-4 mb-3">
          <div class="card h-100 border-0 shadow-sm">
            <div class="card-body">
              <h2 class="fs-6 mb-1"><a href="https://guidance.apievangelist.com/store/postman/" class="text-decoration-none">Postman</a></h2>
              <p class="text-muted small mb-0">The API client that became the collaboration platform for the entire lifecycle.</p>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
      </div>

      <!-- Public Sector -->
      <h5 class="fw-semibold text-muted mb-3 mt-2 pb-1 border-bottom">Public Sector</h5>
      <div class="row mb-4">
        <div class="col-md-6 col-lg-4 mb-3">
          <div class="card h-100 border-0 shadow-sm">
            <div class="card-body">
              <h2 class="fs-6 mb-1"><a href="https://guidance.apievangelist.com/store/government/" class="text-decoration-none">Government</a></h2>
              <p class="text-muted small mb-0">Public sector APIs from open data initiatives to regulated interoperability mandates.</p>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
      </div>

      <!-- Protocols & Specifications -->
      <h5 class="fw-semibold text-muted mb-3 mt-2 pb-1 border-bottom">Protocols &amp; Specifications</h5>
      <div class="row mb-4">
        <div class="col-md-6 col-lg-4 mb-3">
          <div class="card h-100 border-0 shadow-sm">
            <div class="card-body">
              <h2 class="fs-6 mb-1"><a href="https://guidance.apievangelist.com/store/openapi/" class="text-decoration-none">OpenAPI</a></h2>
              <p class="text-muted small mb-0">The specification that emerged from Swagger to become the industry contract standard.</p>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-md-6 col-lg-4 mb-3">
          <div class="card h-100 border-0 shadow-sm">
            <div class="card-body">
              <h2 class="fs-6 mb-1"><a href="https://guidance.apievangelist.com/store/asyncapi/" class="text-decoration-none">AsyncAPI</a></h2>
              <p class="text-muted small mb-0">The specification that brought the OpenAPI model to event-driven APIs.</p>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-md-6 col-lg-4 mb-3">
          <div class="card h-100 border-0 shadow-sm">
            <div class="card-body">
              <h2 class="fs-6 mb-1"><a href="https://guidance.apievangelist.com/store/graphql/" class="text-decoration-none">GraphQL</a></h2>
              <p class="text-muted small mb-0">Facebook's query language that offered a flexible alternative to REST.</p>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-md-6 col-lg-4 mb-3">
          <div class="card h-100 border-0 shadow-sm">
            <div class="card-body">
              <h2 class="fs-6 mb-1"><a href="https://guidance.apievangelist.com/store/microservices/" class="text-decoration-none">Microservices</a></h2>
              <p class="text-muted small mb-0">The architectural shift that made internal APIs as important as external ones.</p>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-md-6 col-lg-4 mb-3">
          <div class="card h-100 border-0 shadow-sm">
            <div class="card-body">
              <h2 class="fs-6 mb-1"><a href="https://guidance.apievangelist.com/store/mcp/" class="text-decoration-none">MCP</a></h2>
              <p class="text-muted small mb-0">Model Context Protocol and the latest chapter in API integration history.</p>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
      </div>

    </section>
  </div>
</div>