I stopped Googling "best API for X" and built something better
Every indie hacker hits this wall at some point.
You need an API.
So you do what everyone does:
Google "best payment API for SaaS"
Open 12 tabs
Read 6 blog posts from 2019
Land on RapidAPI
Get overwhelmed by 400 options with no useful context
Pick one based on vibes
Regret it 3 weeks later when you hit a hidden rate limit or a pricing wall you didn't see coming
I did this too many times.
So I started building Apives.
The actual problem
Most API directories help you find APIs.
But finding isn't the hard part anymore.
The hard part is evaluating.
Before I integrate any API, I want to know:
Is there a free tier?
What does pricing actually look like?
Is this API stable enough to build on?
What does a real request/response look like?
How painful is the auth setup?
Will this API exist in 6 months?
Most directories don't answer those questions.
They just show you a name, a logo, and a link to docs.
That's not enough when you're building solo and every wrong API choice costs you days.
What Apives does differently
Apives is a curated API discovery platform built around the questions developers actually ask before integrating:
Clear pricing — Free / Freemium / Paid, no detective work
Stability ratings — Low / Medium / High confidence signals
Access types — so you know what you're getting into
Real endpoint examples — actual requests, not just marketing copy
Use-case first — search by what you're building, not just category
And alongside the platform, I built free tools that remove the small daily friction of API work:
Live API Runner — test requests instantly, no Postman needed
JWT Decoder — debug auth tokens without pasting them on random sites
API Response Formatter — make ugly JSON readable in one click
cURL Converter — turn cURL into fetch/Axios code instantly
Mock Server — build frontend without waiting for backend
ApivesAI — just ask what API you need, in plain English
No signup required for any tool.
The ApivesAI angle
The thing I'm most excited about right now is ApivesAI.
Because the real bottleneck isn't "there aren't enough APIs."
It's:
too many options, too much noise, not enough useful signal
So instead of just browsing, you can now ask things like:
"What's a good free API for image generation?"
"I need an API for voice to text with a generous free tier"
"Best auth API for a small SaaS MVP?"
And get actual useful answers, not just a list of logos.
Where I am right now
500+ developers on the newsletter
Growing curated API library
6 free dev tools live
ApivesAI live
Use-case based discovery working
Still early. Still improving.
But I'm genuinely solving a problem I had myself — and I know hundreds of other devs have too.
One question for you
When you're evaluating a new API — what's the first thing you check?
Pricing? Docs quality? GitHub stars? Free tier? Rate limits?
Curious what matters most to other indie hackers before they commit to an integration.
