Use any app as your backend API instantly
Tags: webdev, programming, productivity, api
Published: 2024-02-10 12:21:57

Building on a new idea can be very exciting, but the moment you want to get access to APIs of third party SaaS, it becomes borderline frustrating. This is the case with integrating most of the apps out there, be it Google sheets, Slack, Airtable, HubSpot or more.

Well, you are not alone if you relate with this problem. While building a lot of my projects, this was the case with me and my friends. We spent hours trying to get things to work with other apps, rather than actually building the app.

## Building apps without writing a single line of backend code

You would be surprised to know about projects minting revenue in thousands of dollars out there started with just Google sheets as a backend! 

[Level.fyi](http://Level.fyi) scaled to millions of users just with [Google Sheets as a backend](https://www.levels.fyi/blog/scaling-to-millions-with-google-sheets.html). [Nomadlist.com](http://Nomadlist.com) started with Google Sheets as a data store for the website. There are tons of examples out there, having third party apps as a backend or database can help you build and validate ideas faster.


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/uve2bit476u4x8pb6bby.png)

## API Integrations take time and effort

While using any of these third party SaaS with your app, it takes quite a lot of effort in most cases.

1. You have to set up OAuth apps, or go through API Consoles to get access to APIs. In some cases, you might have to even verify the app with the platform to start using the APIs.
1. You need to spend hours going through the API docs and figuring out how to use the APIs.
1. Once you have figured out the APIs, you have to spend time on setting up an API client like postman to test out the APIs
1. If you are using APIs via OAuth, you need to write code to manually store the refresh tokens, and mechanisms to refresh the tokens.
1. Due to security reasons, you cannot expose these APIs directly to frontend without writing backend.

While building apps with Google Sheets, Airtable, or other SaaS as a backend sounds easier, the process of getting the APIs aren’t so friendly.


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/mhflez7612jse2j8qngc.png)

## Using Apico to use any app as a backend API

From being frustrated about the time and effort we are spending on integrating APIs and to write code that handles OAuth mechanisms, we built [Apico](https://apico.dev?utm_source=dev.to&utm_campaign=dev_backend_blog)!


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ltezewlntd6toksxqd3b.png)


[Apico](https://apico.dev?utm_source=dev.to&utm_campaign=dev_backend_blog) is a no-code API development platform which can help you get access to these third party SaaS APIs instantly. It also comes with some sweet features to help you focus on building your app rather than wasting time figuring out integrations.


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/lmslpasc6w23scd0w4ui.png)


Not just APIs, [Apico](https://apico.dev?utm_source=dev.to&utm_campaign=dev_backend_blog) provides a full-blown API explorer and a powerful proxy with fine-grained access controls to help you get hands-on with the API in seconds. To use the APIs without any backend, you can lock the APIs you don’t want to expose to the frontend easily within a single click. This way, you can use APIs within your frontend or no-code apps easily.


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/qv0xq4n84chahfcpuqzt.png)


You can sign up to [Apico](https://apico.dev?utm_source=dev.to&utm_campaign=dev_backend_blog) and quickly create API for some of the most popular apps out there. Here are some of them -

- Google sheets
- Airtable
- Hubspot
- Slack
- GitHub
- Google Calendar
- Shopify
- and more…