{"id":2091,"date":"2021-02-15T08:54:23","date_gmt":"2021-02-15T08:54:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/?p=2091"},"modified":"2023-09-03T14:09:46","modified_gmt":"2023-09-03T14:09:46","slug":"how-to-load-test-restful-apis-with-loadfocus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/2021\/02\/how-to-load-test-restful-apis-with-loadfocus","title":{"rendered":"How to Load Test RESTful APIs with LoadFocus"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\"><\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes read<\/span><\/span>\n<p class=\"lead\">In order to learn how to test your APIs, especially how to load test your APIs, let&#8217;s first find out some essential info on APIs and RESTful APIs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What is an API? (Application Programming Interface)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>API stands for Application Programming Interface, which is a set of functions that allows two applications to talk to each other. Also, APIs allow interaction between various software components, microservices by exchanging responses between users and systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What is RESTful API?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>REST stands for <strong>Representational state transfer<\/strong>, and&nbsp;is an architecture standard for designing networked applications, interactive applications that  use multiple Web Services. More details about REST and RESTful APIs can be found <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Representational_state_transfer\" rel=\"nofollow\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An API is considered RESTful if it ticks all criteria below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>A <strong>client-server architecture<\/strong> with requests made through <strong>HTTP<\/strong> (Hypertext Transfer Protocol).<\/li><li><strong>Stateless<\/strong> communication which translates that each request is executed like it&#8217;s made from scratch, no information is stored about the client, or about the past transactions. <\/li><li><strong>Cacheable data<\/strong> between client and server.<\/li><li><strong>Uniform interface<\/strong>&nbsp;which tells that resources should be uniquely identifiable through a single URL to identify and manipulate resources.<\/li><li><strong>Layered system<\/strong> which allows for an architecture composed of multiple layers of servers, hierarchies which are invisible&nbsp;to&nbsp;the client.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Overall, REST APIs are simpler to implement comparing to SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) APIs, which requires additional requirements when starting a transaction, relies heavily on XML and uses WSDL \u2013 Web Service Description language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>REST uses methods GET, PUT, POST, DELETE to link resources to actions within a client-server relationship, its main purpose is to offer simplicity and end-user satisfaction for a wide audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Which response formats are used in REST APIs?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>REST uses <strong>HTML, XML, plain text, and JSON<\/strong> as potential responses, however, the most popular one is JSON (JavaScript object notation) because is easily readable by humans and easily to integrate with other frameworks and tools since it&#8217;s widely accepted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/network-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"api client server\" class=\"wp-image-2101\" srcset=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/network-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/network-600x338.jpg 600w, https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/network-400x225.jpg 400w, https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/network-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/network-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/network.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Now that we have a basic understanding of REST APIs and what a RESTful API stands for, we can continue and have a look at load testing, and <a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/2020\/11\/what-is-the-purpose-of-load-testing\/\" title=\"What is the Purpose of Load Testing?\">what is the purpose of load testing<\/a> or check <a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/2021\/01\/what-is-a-good-example-of-load-testing\/\" title=\"What is a Good Example of Load Testing?\">what is a good example of load testing<\/a>, this can apply to your website and APIs as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We can follow the steps to start API load testing by following some of the previous posts that include <a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/2018\/04\/how-to-design-your-load-testing-scenarios\/\">load testing scenarios<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/performance-testing-vs-load-testing\/\" title=\"Performance Testing vs. Load Testing\">performance testing vs. load testing<\/a>, and an example of <a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/2014\/08\/load-testing-for-restful-apis-in-the-cloud\/\" title=\"Load Testing for RESTful APIs in the Cloud\">APIs to be tested in the cloud<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Written by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/coursinator.com\/instructor\/bogdan-vazzolla\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" class=\"broken_link\">Bogdan&nbsp;Vazzolla<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/\">LoadFocus<\/a>&nbsp;is a cloud testing platform,&nbsp;a <a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/load-testing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">load and stress testing tool<\/a>&nbsp;which provides the infrastructure to run tests with thousands of concurrent users, from&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/locations\">multiple cloud locations<\/a>, in less than a few minutes, keep history of the results, compare different runs to inspect performance improvements or performance degradation.<\/em>&nbsp;<em>It also supports running&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/jmeter-load-testing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">JMeter load tests from the cloud<\/a><\/em> and <a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/page-speed-monitoring\">monitoring and audit web and mobile performance<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\"><\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes read<\/span><\/span>In order to learn how to test your APIs, especially how to load test your APIs, let&#8217;s first find out some essential info on APIs and RESTful APIs. What is an API? (Application Programming Interface) API stands for Application Programming Interface, which is a set of functions that allows two applications to talk to each&#8230;  <a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/2021\/02\/how-to-load-test-restful-apis-with-loadfocus\" class=\"more-link\" title=\"Read How to Load Test RESTful APIs with LoadFocus\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2100,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,337,9,6,48],"tags":[340,338,339],"class_list":["post-2091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apache-jmeter","category-api-load-testing","category-load-testing","category-performance-testing","category-test-automation","tag-load-testing-apis-in-the-cloud","tag-load-testing-rest-apis","tag-restful-apis-load-testing-tool"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2091"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2748,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2091\/revisions\/2748"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}