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API Blueprint vs Swagger UI

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API Blueprint
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Swagger UI
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API Blueprint vs Swagger UI: What are the differences?

Introduction:

In this markdown, we will discuss the key differences between API Blueprint and Swagger UI. Both API Blueprint and Swagger UI are popular tools used for designing, documenting, and testing APIs. However, they have several differences that set them apart from each other.

  1. Syntax and Language: API Blueprint uses a Markdown-based syntax that is easy to read and write. It focuses on simplicity and readability, allowing developers to quickly define API endpoints, request formats, and response structures. On the other hand, Swagger UI uses a JSON or YAML-based syntax for defining API specifications. This syntax provides more flexibility and allows for more detailed descriptions and advanced features.

  2. Tooling Ecosystem: API Blueprint has a smaller tooling ecosystem compared to Swagger UI. While API Blueprint offers a few command-line tools and editors for generating documentation, Swagger UI has a larger and more mature ecosystem with support for code generation, mock servers, testing frameworks, and other developer-friendly features.

  3. Visualization and User Interface: Swagger UI provides a rich and interactive user interface that allows developers to visualize and interact with the API documentation. It automatically generates a user-friendly UI that makes it easy to explore and test API endpoints. In contrast, API Blueprint focuses more on generating static documentation that can be rendered in different formats like HTML or PDF, but it doesn't provide the same level of interactivity as Swagger UI.

  4. Integration with Tools and Frameworks: Swagger UI is known for its seamless integration with popular development tools, frameworks, and languages. It has extensive support for languages like Java, JavaScript, Python, and frameworks like Express or Spring Boot. API Blueprint's integration options are more limited and may require additional effort to integrate with specific tools or frameworks.

  5. Community and Adoption: Swagger UI has a larger and more vibrant community compared to API Blueprint. It is widely adopted by many organizations, developers, and API providers. This large community ensures continuous improvement, regular updates, and a wealth of community-driven resources like tutorials, plugins, and extensions. API Blueprint also has a community but is not as widely adopted as Swagger UI.

  6. Learning Curve: API Blueprint has a relatively lower learning curve compared to Swagger UI. Its simple and intuitive syntax makes it easier for developers to quickly grasp and start using it. Swagger UI, on the other hand, has a steeper learning curve due to its more extensive features and complex syntax. It may require more time and effort for developers new to Swagger UI to become proficient.

In Summary, API Blueprint and Swagger UI differ in syntax and language, tooling ecosystem, visualization and user interface, integration with tools and frameworks, community and adoption, and learning curve. However, both tools are widely used and provide effective ways to design, document, and test APIs.

Advice on API Blueprint and Swagger UI
StackShare Editors
| 5 upvotes · 367.4K views
Needs advice
on
PostmanPostmanApiaryApiary
and
Swagger UISwagger UI

From a StackShare Community member: "I just started working for a start-up and we are in desperate need of better documentation for our API. Currently our API docs is in a README.md file. We are evaluating Postman and Swagger UI. Since there are many options and I was wondering what other StackSharers would recommend?"

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Replies (3)
Jagdeep Singh
Tech Lead at ucreate.it · | 8 upvotes · 395.8K views
Recommends
on
PostmanPostman
at

I use Postman because of the ease of team-management, using workspaces and teams, runner, collections, environment variables, test-scripts (post execution), variable management (pre and post execution), folders (inside collections, for better management of APIs), newman, easy-ci-integration (and probably a few more things that I am not able to recall right now).

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Jadenko
| 2 upvotes · 383.7K views
Recommends
on
Swagger UISwagger UI
at

I use Swagger UI because it's an easy tool for end-consumers to visualize and test our APIs. It focuses on that ! And it's directly embedded and delivered with the APIs. Postman's built-in tools aren't bad, but their main focus isn't the documentation and also, they are hosted outside the project.

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Sadik Ay
Backend Engineer · | 2 upvotes · 366.7K views
Recommends
on
PostmanPostman

I recommend Postman because it's easy to use with history option. Also, it has very great features like runner, collections, test scripts runners, defining environment variables and simple exporting and importing data.

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Pros of API Blueprint
Pros of Swagger UI
  • 1
    Easy to use
  • 1
    Ecosystem of tools
  • 49
    Open Source
  • 34
    Can execute api calls from the documentation
  • 29
    Free to use
  • 19
    Customizable
  • 14
    Easy to implement in .Net
  • 13
    Mature, clean spec
  • 12
    API Visualization
  • 9
    Coverage
  • 6
    Scaffolding
  • 6
    Easy to use
  • 5
    Vibrant and active community
  • 4
    Elegant
  • 3
    Adopted by tm forum api
  • 2
    Clear for React
  • 1
    Api
  • 1
    Can deploy API to AWS API Gateway and AWS Lambda

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Cons of API Blueprint
Cons of Swagger UI
    Be the first to leave a con
    • 3
      Need to learn YAML and RAML
    • 2
      Documentation doesn't look that good
    • 1
      Doesn't generate code snippets in different languages
    • 1
      You don’t actually get in-line error highlighting
    • 1
      Does not support hypermedia

    Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

    What is API Blueprint?

    API Blueprint is simple and accessible to everybody involved in the API lifecycle. Its syntax is concise yet expressive. With API Blueprint you can quickly design and prototype APIs to be created or document and test already deployed mission-critical APIs.

    What is Swagger UI?

    Swagger UI is a dependency-free collection of HTML, Javascript, and CSS assets that dynamically generate beautiful documentation and sandbox from a Swagger-compliant API

    Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

    What companies use API Blueprint?
    What companies use Swagger UI?
    Manage your open source components, licenses, and vulnerabilities
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    What tools integrate with API Blueprint?
    What tools integrate with Swagger UI?
      No integrations found

      Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions

      What are some alternatives to API Blueprint and Swagger UI?
      RAML
      RESTful API Modeling Language (RAML) makes it easy to manage the whole API lifecycle from design to sharing. It's concise - you only write what you need to define - and reusable. It is machine readable API design that is actually human friendly.
      Apiary
      It takes more than a simple HTML page to thrill your API users. The right tools take weeks of development. Weeks that apiary.io saves.
      Postman
      It is the only complete API development environment, used by nearly five million developers and more than 100,000 companies worldwide.
      Postman
      It is the only complete API development environment, used by nearly five million developers and more than 100,000 companies worldwide.
      Stack Overflow
      Stack Overflow is a question and answer site for professional and enthusiast programmers. It's built and run by you as part of the Stack Exchange network of Q&A sites. With your help, we're working together to build a library of detailed answers to every question about programming.
      See all alternatives

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