Zend Announces General Release of Apigility 1.0, Empowering Companies to Easily Create API-Based Applications

Open-Source API Builder Provides Standardized User Interface for Producing Quality APIs, Enabling Companies to Quickly Develop and Deliver New Applications

Cupertino, Calif.—May 7, 2014 — Zend, the PHP Company, today announced the general availability of Apigility 1.0, a simple, standard interface for building and maintaining high quality APIs. APIs, which fuel today’s interconnected applications, are a prerequisite for achieving overall company agility, innovation and business success. First unveiled and previewed at the ZendCon conference in October 2013, Apigility eliminates the challenges traditionally associated with designing and implementing APIs, while radically simplifying support for advanced API traits such as versioning, validation, error handling, documentation and more.

“We have been astonished and thrilled by the thousands of developers who have already adopted Apigility,” said Matthew Weier O’Phinney, Apigility Project Leader. “These early users have validated that Apigility simplifies API creation, enabling them to innovate and create new value for their companies.”

An API-based architecture is integral to future-proofing applications, allowing the same APIs to be used across multiple form factors and mobile device types –and reused in different applications throughout a company’s technology ecosystem. With the right set of APIs, companies can support Web and mobile apps whose data and services are provided by multiple back-end systems and more easily provide service to multiple front-end devices and form factors.

“API first has become the new mantra for web development, due to the variety of devices and form factors accessing the web today,” said Zeev Suraski, CTO and Co-founder of Zend. “Apigility has done a phenomenal job of knocking down some of the challenges traditionally associated with API-based application design.“

“Achieving company-wide agility is at the top of every business’ ‘must do’ list, as it is key to seizing strategic market opportunities,” said Andi Gutmans, CEO and Co-founder, Zend. “Achieving agility as a company has two sides to it – on the one hand developing in a more rapid and agile manner – and here is where APIs have a pivotal importance. But there is also the side of moving that application more rapidly from development into production – and Zend believes that both sides need to be given equal weight. Adopting an API based architecture both helps speed initial development of new apps but also makes those components more usable and reusable, thus helping speed future development efforts too. However the other half of the equation is to invest in the capability to continuously deliver those new apps to market.”

Developers can use Apigility to build APIs that enable mobile apps, developer communities, and any other consumer-controlled access to applications. Apigility automates some of the API-creation process, also enabling developers to evolve – including adding, updating or removing -- their APIs as requirements change. Developers can also tailor APIs to specifications needed to address business requirements. Apigility allows any PHP-based business logic to be API enabled regardless of how it’s written and what framework it uses, if any.

Apigility 1.0 includes the following features:

Create APIs with RPC and REST services – Developers can create new APIs with both RPC and REST services, providing a full spectrum of web services.

API authentication – Authorization and authentication can be added to APIs, allowing credentials to be assigned to specific users.

API documentation – Developers can document their API, providing a reference to end-user consumers.

Additional Apigility highlights include:

Error handling - When an error occurs on the server side, Apigility immediately reports the response involved and the nature of the problem to the API consumer. This reporting enables programmers to easily parse and understand what happened, rather than remain mystified.

Validation – Apigility provides tools for ensuring that all data coming into an API is valid. If not, Apigility sends a single response, in a predictable format, reporting all errors. API consumers know up front when they did something wrong.

Content negotiation - Apigility will verify whether each client is capable of viewing an application, and whether data submitted to an API is of an acceptable content type. If not, Apigility sends back a response indicating that the API can’t provide a representation, or cannot understand the data.

Versioning - Apigility supports multiple versions of the same API and enables developers to easily support both old and up-to-date clients at the same time, fully automating version negotiation. The user interface allows developers to manage all versions of the API from one centralized place, and provision new versions as needed.

Apigility 1.0 is available now at www.apigility.org.

For system requirements and installation details, please visit the Apigility documentation: http://www.apigility.org/documentation.

About Zend Technologies 
Zend partners with businesses to rapidly deliver modern apps across mobile and cloud. Zend helped establish the PHP language, which today powers over 200 million applications and web sites. Zend’s flagship offering, Zend Server, is the leading Application Platform for developing, deploying and managing business-critical applications in PHP. Zend solutions are deployed at more than 40,000 companies, including NYSE Euronext, BNP Paribas, Bell Helicopter, France Telecom and other leading brands worldwide. Learn more atwww.zend.com.