Extended list of technologies/approaches for API and integrations

Сore technology stack for working with APIs and integrations. Here’s a more comprehensive list of popular technologies and protocols used in web development, API integrations, and microservice architecture.

Category Technologies / Protocols / Approaches Notes
Data Formats JSON, XML, YAML, Protobuf (Protocol Buffers) JSON is the de facto standard, Protobuf is used for high-performance APIs
Types of APIs REST, GraphQL, gRPC, SOAP, WebSocket, RPC gRPC is an alternative to REST for microservices
Reactive Mechanisms Webhooks, Server-Sent Events (SSE), WebSockets, MQTT For push notifications and real-time communication
Security / Authorization OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, JWT (JSON Web Tokens), API Keys, Basic Auth, HMAC SOAuth 2.0 + JWT is the most popular combination
API Documentation OpenAPI (Swagger), Postman, RAML, AsyncAPI Swagger/OpenAPI is used for auto-generating documentation
Integration Technologies Message Brokers (RabbitMQ, Kafka, NATS), ETL, Event-Driven Architecture (EDA) Suitable for scalable systems
Data Serialization Avro, Thrift, Protobuf, CBOR, MessagePack Especially relevant for IoT and high-performance APIs
API Management Kong, Apigee, AWS API Gateway, Traefik, Zuul, Istio (Service Mesh) Management, monitoring, rate limiting, etc.
CI/CD Integrations GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Docker, Kubernetes Often associated with API deployment pipelines
Service Discovery & Gateway Consul, Eureka, NGINX, HAProxy, Envoy Used in microservice architectures

Tips

  • If you’re planning a modern architecture, REST + JSON + OAuth 2.0 + Swagger is your minimum viable stack.
  • For complex and high-load projects → consider gRPC, Kafka, and Service Mesh.
  • For real-time systems — use WebSockets, SSE, or MQTT.
  • For flexible API documentation — combine OpenAPI with Postman.

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