SUGGESTION: Include a RESTful Web API as part of core functionality

I have to say that I love the nopCommerce experience. It is so easy to work with and UI is excellent. Adding other currencies and multiple language support is really easy.

BUT......

I think that in this day and age where mobile apps are so ubiquitous, it is almost unacceptable to not provide a working, RESTful web API for nopCommerce as part of the core functionality that can be used out of the box.

Yes, I know there are some third-party web APIs, but quite frankly, they do not meet the outstanding standard of the nopCommerce app itself. The two options I have come across are

1) The nop4you Web API, which, in contrast to the open-source philosophy of nopCommerce, costs US$149. This may be too expensive for some retailers, particularly those in poorer parts of the world, where the cost of this plugin may constitute a significant part of their monthly salary.  

2) The API plugin by Github user SevenSpikes. As it is community developed, it is not always compatible with the latest version of nopCommerce. In addition, it uses an extremely convoluted OAuth 2.0 Authorization Code grant type login flow, which keeps API user data completely separate from the nopCommerce user model, and does not appear to contain a way to register users from a mobile app. Furthermore, when people have asked about this on the Issues page, clear answers have not been given.

The fact that a RESTful API is not available out of the box may lead some developers/clients to pass over nopCommerce in favour of e-commerce frameworks that do provide this functionality as a core component.

I'll try a fork of the abovementioned plugin, but if that doesn't work, I will have no choice but to reject nopCommerce and return to using the clearly inferior Spree E-Commerce, which does provide a web API out of the box.

KiwiNFLFan wrote:

Did you have any luck with this? We do a lot of admin tasks with our current system via APIs and need to have the option to extend any system we move to should the APIs needed not be available out of the box.

JimmyDSmitth wrote:

No, I didn't. It worked at first, and I was able to get the mobile app displaying a list of products and the details of an individual product, but after a while, it started mysteriously returning HTTP 403 status codes. I was not able to figure out why this was.

This is the fork of the plugin that I used. I notice that the guy also has his own fork of nopCommerce that is 2 years old, so maybe the API plugin is only designed to work with that version and not any additional versions.

Thanks for letting me know.

It's a shame that the official release doesn't come with an API. Or at a minimum a stripped down extendable API that just covers authentication and 1 area e.g. orders or products. That way there would be a jumping off point.
And I think it would be easier for the community (I include myself at this level) to do the grunt work and build it out to include the other areas.

Here are links for API supported to latest version
https://github.com/MaximG1234/api-plugin-for-nopcommerce
https://github.com/madewithfire/api-plugin-for-nopcommerce
https://github.com/zakaryaasadi/api_for_nopcommerce

For more detail please check this (https://github.com/SevenSpikes/api-plugin-for-nopcommerce/issues/223)

That's great thanks. I'll look over those.

I fully agree that an API should be part of the NOPComerce core.
When things get a bit more advanced and/or you have other systems in play (apps, product management, inventory etc.) you need an API to communicate.
At the moment this is a key element that is missing in NOPCommerce.