Web app
The difference between a website that informs and a web app people work in — and why that difference sets the budget.
Read more →What is an API?
An API is how two systems talk to each other. Why that decides whether your packages will ever work together.
What it is
An API is an agreed way for software to ask other software for data or hand it over. Your accounting package has one, your webshop has one, and if both speak the same language one can create an invoice in the other without anybody retyping.
As a user you never see it. You only notice it when it is absent, and somebody is therefore copying data manually from one screen to another.
Why it might matter to you
- Whether a package has an API decides whether it can ever work with your other systems. Ask before you buy, not after.
- Having an API is not the same as having a usable one: some are read-only, some cost extra, some sit in a dearer plan.
- Integrations are often the cheapest answer to a problem that looks like "we need new software".
- An integration is maintenance: if one side changes, the other has to follow. That belongs in the budget.
How we handle it
This is almost always the first question on a custom project: which systems are already running, and can they talk. Often the job then turns out smaller than expected — not building a new system, but making two existing ones talk so nobody has to retype anything.
Related terms
Headless CMS
A headless CMS manages only the content and does not decide how the site looks. What that buys you and who it is overkill for.
Read more →Integration
An integration lets two systems exchange data without retyping. What it saves and what breaks when one side changes.
Read more →Not sure which way to go?
Send a short brief with what you have now and what needs to be better. You get an honest answer, including if that answer is that you do not need us for it.