API Ratings | August, 2020: Etsy, why so slow?

The time has arrived when we disclose our API ratings for August 2020. We recently launched API.expert as a simple way to provide everybody with insights into the API economy and the leading APIs in different categories in particular.

The basic service is free and will remain free, but other, related services will be built on top of it, including your very own API.expert dashboards if you want them!

Each week, month and year we’ll look at the APIs we track in a variety of sectors for their quality CASC score (using our patented (US Patent 10,644,962, if you fancy a little light bedtime reading) that allows you glance to see the Api rating and compare it to other ones, as well as factors like uptime and availability.

If something is missing in our API ratings that you think should be here, don’t hesitate to drop us a line!

Now, onto what the past month tells us about the state of API ratings at the end of the second third of 2020.

API Performance Headlines

To compile our API ratings, we look at more than 200 APIs. Then we pull all the metrics together to give you a general feeling for API quality in a particular category.
We do see that certain providers consistently vie for top spot in their API ratings category, including GitHub and Google. Others do less well, such as Halifax and the NHS.

Top API Ratings – CASC Score

Month of August, 2020

Category	Organization	CASC score
Corporate Infrastructure	GitHub	9.55
COVID-19	ECDC (European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control)	8.97
Cryptocurrency Exchanges	Coinpaprika	9.00
Fintech	Stripe	9.37
Search	Google	9.34
Social Networks	Twitter	9.69
Open Banking – PSD2	Nordea Bank	9.91
Open Banking – UK	Royal Bank of Scotland (Sandbox)	9.82
Open Banking – UK Open Data	Bank of Ireland	9.80
UK Government	Police.UK	9.17
Us Government	Department of Justice	9.61

We have rearranged the API ratings categories slightly recently to reflect better which APIs are direct peers of others. There are therefore a number of additional changes and new entries this month.

• ECDC (European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control) replaces COVID-19 API (nubentos.com) in COVID-19
• Stripe a new entrant in the new category of Fintech
• Twitter replaces Google in Social Networks
• Royal Bank of Scotland (Sandbox) a new entrant in the new category of Open Banking – UK
• Bank of Ireland replacing Danske Bank in Open Banking – UK – Open Data
• Department of Justice Federal Communications Commission in US Government

Six out of the 11 API ratings categories are topped by an API with a CASC score of over 9.50, which is an excellent showing on their parts.

Nordea Bank takes the overall top spot with a first class CASC score of 9.91, up from 9.89 last month.

ECDC (European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control) tops the COVID-19 API ratings, but with a CASC score of less than 9.00, although at 8.97 it is solidly in the Green Zone.

Top API Ratings – Latency

Month of August, 2020

Category	Organization	Median Latency
Corporate Infrastructure	Microsoft Office	230 ms
COVID-19	CDC Tools	156 ms
Cryptocurrency Exchanges	Coinbase	149 ms
Fintech	Stripe	301 ms
Search	Facebook	317 ms
Social Networks	Google	58 ms
Open Banking - PSD2	Railsbank	110 ms
Open Banking - UK	Royal Bank of Scotland (Sandbox)	149 ms
Open Banking - UK Open Data	HSBC	80 ms
UK Government	Police.UK	89 ms
Us Government	Department of Justice	51 ms

A few changes this month in the API ratings, with Stripe a new entrant in the new category of Fintech, Railsbank replacing Nordea Bank in Open Banking – PSD2, and Royal Bank of Scotland (Sandbox) a new entrant in the new category of Open Banking – UK. Google in Social Networks is again fastest overall with a median latency of 58 ms, up from 57 ms last month.

Worst API Quality Overall

Month of August, 2020

Category	Organization	CASC Score
Corporate Infrastructure	Cisco Spark	7.79
COVID-19	Coronavirus Data API (thevirustracker.com)	5.40
Cryptocurrency Exchanges	Oasis Dex	5.87
Fintech	Open Bank Project (Sandbox)	7.66
Search	Nobody below 8.00!
Social Networks	Nobody below 8.00!
Open Banking - PSD2	Nobody below 8.00!
Open Banking - UK	Nobody below 8.00!
Open Banking - UK Open Data	HSBC	7.81
UK Government	GOV.UK	6.62
Us Government	Department of Commerce	6.05

Several changes this month:

• Open Bank Project (Sandbox) a new entrant in the new API ratings category of Fintech
• Barclays (Sandbox) a new entrant in the new category of Open Banking – UK
• HSBC replacing Barclays in Open Banking – UK- Open Data
• GOV.UK replacing NHS in UK Government
• Federal Communications replacing Commission Department of Commerce in US Government

The overall loser trophy for August goes to Coronavirus Data API (thevirustracker.com), albeit with a CASC score of 5.40m, placing it firmly in the Red Zone for the month.

Something of Interest

Google Social Networks is usually the fastest API we monitor. It is blistering fast for Process Time. Except, oddly for Google, in Oceania and South America. This indicates that there is some kind of caching issue for calls to the API when made from its own cloud locations in those regions. You shouldn’t be hundreds of milliseconds slower from your infrastructure than that of your competitors. This is one reason why you need to monitor your endpoints from the end-user perspectives. How are you really doing not just inside the corporate network, but from anywhere in the world? You just might be for a nasty shock. We find that in 2020 DNS Lookup Time averages 12 ms for every cloud and location. Some locations are even quicker (4 ms). Unsurprisingly for such a fast API, Google Social Networks isn’t suffering any DNS Lookup Time issues. Etsy was the slowest API in Social Networks in August. It has a pretty slow process time, but interestingly it varies a lot between clouds and regions from a fastest of 138 ms for IBM Cloud in North America to a slowest of 1047 ms for AWS in South Asia. Process Time should be similar for all locations. When it is not it suggests configurations issues. These might, for instance, be caching or routing problems. As a slow API, we expect Etsy to slow DNS Lookup Time and it does, varying from a fastest of 12 ms for AWS Oceania, which is what it should be, to a slowest of 252 ms for IBM Cloud Oceania. Given that most APIs have a DNS Lookup Time of 12 ms (or faster) from all locations, it’s worth asking why Etsy only manages it from one cloud in one region. If it can do it in AWS Oceania, it should be able to do it everywhere. Which is another reason why you need to be actively monitoring externally. Do you know what your DNS Lookup Time is from around the world? If it’s not 12 ms or less, why not? And is slow DNS Lookup Time affecting your user’s experiences of your APIs? See you again in a month, when we give out our API ratings as we move into September and the end of the third quarter of this extraordinary year. Also, don’t forget to check out our weekly API ratings reports.

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