A Guide on Understanding API Response Time

You must check the response time in api gateway to know how quickly the interfaces respond to different requests. The process helps you prioritize the API that requires performance improvement depending on the metrics. API response time determines how quickly an API system responds to a server request. The response time is a significant metric that helps scale the speed of web applications in the web api gateway.

Understanding API Response Time?

API response time is the average time an API requires to execute requests. The response time begins when a client initiates a request to an API server and ends when it sends a response to the client.

The overall execution time for API includes the following.

• Receive requests for the API.

• Apply inbound processing policies.

• Pass the request to backend services for processing.

• Receive a response from the backend service.

• Apply outbound processing policies.

• Send a response to the end-user.

API response time is a critical metric for analyzing API interactions. Slow API responses increase waiting times, make applications look clumsy, and cause a failure of other functions. So, API response time matters in such situations to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the API in end-to-end api management.

Calculating API Response Time

You can utilize various test tools to measure the average API response time by analyzing a business process with start and end transaction systems. A business process is an activity that users do in an application to execute tasks in api manager.

The calculation of API response time will vary from tool to tool for the following reasons.

• The calculating metrics of each API time testing tool will be different.

• The tools capture speed to see how they can affect the reaction time.

• Multiple items get recorded when monitoring user loads.

• The computing management of each tool increases the response time due to high resource use.

• The architecture of two different tools cannot be the same.

You will find three metrics to measure API response time. We will discuss the metrics in detail below.

Average Response Time

The average response time is the time required to complete each round-trip request. The response time includes the loading time for CSS, XML, HTML, JavaScript, pictures, etc. So, the average response time may get affected if a slow component is present in the system.

Peak Response Time

A peak response time helps you to identify troublesome or dangerous components. The response time assists you in locating website or system inconsistencies where a particular request may not get processed correctly.

Error Rate

Error rate refers to the quantitative statistic that displays the percentage of troublesome requests compared to normal ones. The HTTP status codes in the same percentage indicate server errors. Error rate also keeps track of expired requests.

How Quickly Should an API Respond?

High-performing APIs have an average response time between 0.1 to one second. The end-users will not experience any interruption at such a speed. 0.1 second is the best response time because users get the impression that the application or the website responds quickly without interruptions.

However, the users may notice delays of around one or two seconds. However, it is also the maximum response time that users can tolerate while visiting a website or an application. The user experience gets disrupted if the response time is more than a second.

The users may face significant delays and abandon the website or the application if the response time is around five seconds. The response time exceeds the threshold if it exceeds five seconds.

So, an API response time must be short and feasible for 0.1 to 1 second. Users can adapt to decreased response times, but it will never satisfy them if it is more than 2 seconds.

An API may not hit the benchmark of short responses for every request, especially for resource-intensive requests or requests sent during high traffic. Both situations place more load on the server and increase the response time.

However, you must aim to improve API response time and ensure it falls between 0.1 to 1-second duration. You must also remain mindful of the other metrics like peak response time, and average response time to ensure that the API performance is up to the mark and also follow advanced security measures.

What Is an Example of an API Response Time?

Travel booking sites are the best examples of API usage. The sites aggregate thousands of destinations and flights and display the cheapest options for customers. Most sites use third-party API apps to collect hotel or flight availabilities from providers. If you book via one of the travel booking services, the site will use APIs to confirm your trip with the provider who sourced the information.

The interaction between travel booking sites and customers is an example of API response time. The response time is crucial for the sites because it makes it easy to autonomously exchange data and requests like trip availabilities, reservation requirements, etc.

Summing It Up

API response time is the best metric to ensure that your API system is fast and efficient. The response time is the average time an API takes to process client requests and send responses back. The API response time matters because it helps analyze the speed of a website or an application. Unified.cc is an API platform that helps connect multiple APIs to a single API without connector-specific variations. The platform also helps speed up the development time of API requests and responses to help you concentrate on other relevant tasks.