Navigating Rapid API: An Empirical Dive into the Service Market

Abstract

Service registry, a key component of the service-oriented architecture (SOA), aids software developers in discovering services that meet specific functionality requirements. Recent years have witnessed the transition from the traditional service registries to its successor, the Service Marketplaces, which has led to the widespread adoption of these web services. Service Marketplaces involve deeper engagement in the SOA software lifecycle and offer additional features, such as service request delegation and monitoring of services’ Quality of Service (QoS).

However, through a comprehensive study of RapidAPI web services, the largest service marketplace, and their integration into GitHub-hosted applications along with analyzing developers’ concerns posted on online Q&A forums related to service marketplaces, it was found that despite the extensive use of these web services, there is a lack of a systematic approach to guide service developers in creating appealing offerings. Additionally, many developers struggle with such a transition, leading to development inefficiencies and even security vulnerabilities.

This paper presents the first empirical study that: • Provides a powerful avenue for better understanding integration developers’ rationale for selecting services from a marketplace like RapidAPI and integrating them into applications (using the GitHub platform for this analysis). • Highlights the challenges developers face with service marketplaces due to changes in the functioning of the service registry component of SOA. • Offers a solution to help developers address challenges related to service marketplaces.

The article initially presents a detailed comparison between two generations of service registries to identify the root causes of developers’ concerns related to the new generation service registry. In the next part, the article discusses data collected on over 16K RapidAPI services and 19K GitHub repositories that invoke these services, evaluating each based on metrics like latency, reliability, pricing, followers, aggregate ratings, community support, and provider support. The analysis explores how these metrics influence service popularity and usage on GitHub. By manually analyzing 800 repositories, developers’ service selection preferences and integration patterns were identified, considering alternatives and features. Further, developers were classified by proficiency levels to understand how expertise impacts service selection and integration strategies. Additionally, insights were refined by focusing on mature repositories, excluding those used for practice.

Finally, through manual labeling and analysis of developers’ questions, a taxonomy of issues was developed, summarizing the impacts of the transition, and providing actionable suggestions for app developers, service providers, and marketplaces. We also fine-tune a Large Language Model (LLM) to answer similar questions and help extract critical information, such as service outages and key leakages.

This work is the first to provide a comprehensive analysis of developer behavior and challenges in service marketplaces, particularly RapidAPI. It offers valuable insights for improving service selection and integration, ultimately enhancing the efficiency and security of SOA-based applications. By providing actionable solutions and automating support through AI, this research has the potential to significantly improve the developer experience in modern service marketplaces.