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I am trying to understand web API terminology and noticed that many sites have domains such as api.companyname.com and similar for developers.

I wonder if API endpoints are any interfaces for connecting with a resource such as companyname.com/... (facebook.com/friends, google.com/maps/...), or only those accessed through HTTP requests to special domains such as api.companyname.com (graph.facebook.com/..., maps.googleapis.com/...)?

Answers to this question for example What is an Endpoint? do a good job of explaining what an endpoint is, but do not give specific examples to answer my question.

zakuraevs
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  • Loosely speaking, if you type a url into your browser, it's not an API endpoint. If you type it into Postman, it's an API endpoint. If you are worried about using the wrong term, I wouldn't. Like most terms in computing, it's broadened enough from it's original meaning as to be fairly loose. If you were peer reviewing your code with me and chose to refer to your controller path for facebook.com/friends as an 'endpoint', I wouldn't be confused about your meaning - it's an endpoint as far as Internet Explorer is concerned. If you said it was an API endpoint, I'd probably be confused. – Toby Jul 14 '20 at 12:55
  • It depends on your definition of API. The acronym stands for application programming interface. Can you program against https://icanhas.cheezburger.com/? I guess? It would be very challenging and unlikely to work once the site redesigns. Generally I reserve the term "API endpoint" for those URLs that provide data in a specific format using a specific protocol (e.g. REST, or GraphQL, or, under threat of death, SOAP). – Heretic Monkey Jul 14 '20 at 13:12
  • I see, so API endpoints are strictly speaking only used for intentional programming-related requests, as the name implies. Thank you both for the comments. – zakuraevs Jul 15 '20 at 19:24

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