Use the Postman API Network

The Postman API Network is the largest network of APIs across the planet that developers can access and contribute to. Many of the teams and companies responsible for leading-edge APIs and technologies have public workspaces you can explore. Popular third-party APIs are also published, along with examples you can use as a starting point when writing your own APIs or collections.

As an API consumer, you can discover new and popular APIs, workspaces, collections, and Flows on the Postman API Network. Postman associates a verified badge with teams that have successfully met Postman's quality standards, enabling you to choose a public API that's best for your organization. Once you've chosen a public API, you can create your authentication credentials and use the API in your own workspace.

To access the Postman API Network, visit postman.com/explore or select API Network > View all public APIs in the header.

Explore the Postman API Network

You can discover public APIs, workspaces, teams, collections, and Flows on the Postman API Network:

• The Search Postman box at the top of the page searches all Postman teams, workspaces, collections, APIs, and Flows by default. You can also change the scope to Public API Network to limit your search to the Postman API Network.
• Spotlight highlights the latest exciting, useful, and noteworthy contributions to the Postman API Network, handpicked by the experts at Postman.
• Trending APIs shows elements that are the most popular in the Postman API Network, based on the number of people viewing or creating forks of them.
• Categories showcases popular API categories in the Postman API Network: Artificial Intelligence, Communication, Data Analytics, Developer Productivity, DevOps, Financial Services, Payments, and more.
• You can select to view Collections, Workspaces, and Flows. You can sort collection and workspace results by Featured, New, Week, and All Time. You can sort Flows results by New, Most Viewed, and Most Forked. You can also filter collections using the categories listed on its results page.

Choose an API on the Postman API Network

Teams on the Postman API Network are either verified or not verified. A team that's verified has a verified badge anywhere the team's name appears on the Postman API Network. It's recommended that you use public APIs in verified teams because they meet Postman's quality standards. If a team has a verified badge, it means the following:

• Postman has confirmed that the team is the authoritative owner of the API.
• The team has actively maintained public workspaces and well-documented collections.
• Guided Auth is set up for their public APIs, enabling you to quickly make your first request.

Learn more about the requirements for becoming a verified team in Postman.

You can also use public APIs in teams that don't have a verified badge. Teams without a verified badge are safe to interact with on the Postman API Network. It's recommended that you confirm the non-verified team is associated with the company they claim to represent. To do this, check the company's official developer documentation, and compare the base URL with what's used in the public workspace.

A team might not have a verified badge for the following reasons:

• The team isn't active in Postman.
• The documentation for their collections isn't detailed enough.
• The team is in the verification process with Postman, and they'll soon have a verified badge.

Send a request to a public API

Once you've identified a public API you'd like to use, you can fork the collection associated with the API into your workspace. You can also create your own request in your workspace, and set the URL to the relevant API endpoint.

If the team set up Guided Auth for their public APIs, follow the steps set up by the API publisher to set up authentication credentials using Guided Auth. If the team hasn't set up Guided Auth for their public APIs, you can follow the details in their documentation to learn how to set up the required authentication credentials.

It's recommended that you store your authentication credentials in Postman Vault. This enables you to securely store your credentials in your local instance of Postman. If the team set up Guided Auth, learn how to use Guided Auth to store secrets in your Postman Vault. If the team hasn't set up Guided Auth yet, learn how to store secrets in your Postman Vault.