Application Programming Interface (API) testing helps in determining if the system as a whole meets expectations related to functionality, reliability, performance, and security. Testing involves the business logic layer of the architecture and is completely different from GUI testing. Here, the APIs are directly tested as a part of integration testing.
Today, API testing is performed in a number of organizations. However, there are different teams responsible to carry out API testing. In majority of the organizations, management prefers the QA team to test them. But, you can find companies where API testing is done by the developers as well. If the team doesn’t have adequate knowledge of API testing, it can prove to be a terrifying task. For performing API testing, it is good to have some programming knowledge. Gone are the days where programming skills were limited to the developers. Today, there are many automation tools that require programming skills, thus making testers capable of handling adverse situations.
Since, it is related to testing, many organizations feel comfortable getting it done by the QA team. Most of the big organizations prefer hiring QA personnel with some programming skills. However, organizations that don’t have enough number of testers or they have testers with no programming knowledge, they prefer assigning the job to the development team. In such cases, testers can help them with the actual test cases.
To ease the job of API testing, there are number of API testing tools available in the market. Some are designed to serve special purpose. For example, SoapUI can be used to simulate production systems and complex behaviors. You can use Postman for HTTP client testing, as it can keep history, encrypt data, and send binary responses. JMeter is another tool that can be used to perform simple API testing.
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