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by mbesto 957 days ago
We use Merge for an app I built so I can elaborate.

Using your example, let's say I want to get the weather for Berlin today from NOAA, Foreca, and DarSky. I would have to do:

    noaa.com/api?city=berlin

    foreca.com/api?city=berlin

    darksky.com/api?city=berlin
return each results and store them.

As opposed to sending the call once:

    getweather.com/api?city=berlin
Now let's say I want to add a new source (Wunderground). I login to Merge/Nango and just check "Wunderground" and just change my API call to store the new source.

Now let's say Foreca changes it's API to foreca.com/v2/api?city=berlin I don't have to monitor this at all. Merge/Nango would do this for me.
1 comments
TekMol 957 days ago
Regarding your first point, combining 3 API calls into one: Well, it is just one line of code on your server. But you have put the rest of the logic into the Merge/Nango server. Maybe via some point and click interface. But it is still there. So your complexity went up, not down.

Regarding your second point, APIs don't change just nilly willy from /v1/ to /v2/ and let you "fix" it by swapping "1" with "2". Usually you get changes like /v1/weather does not exist anymore and now you got /v2/exact_weather and /v2/broad_weather. Both different to /v1/weather. exact_weather only accepts city names of cities with a population over 1 million, is now a paid service and returns weekly weather instead of daily. And /v2/broad_weather does not accept city names anymore but only coordinates, is still free but locks you out after 10k monthly requests and returns daily weather but without rainfall info.

So a "in between API" won't save you from dabbling with the change from v1 to v2.

And on top of that, now you have two APIs that will change from time to time. The weather API and the Merge/Nango API.

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eightysixfour 957 days ago
For services Nango supports, they manage all of the things you are talking about - upgrading the APIs, etc. You call weather, you get weather from the APIs you have enabled. They’re selling the management of the complexity you’re talking about.
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