Who’s Using the WordPress REST API?

Ryan McCue and the WP REST API team are seeking feedback on the project ahead of the API merging into core. McCue invited comments on the post to find out how and where it’s currently being used, in hopes of identifying any roadblocks developers may be facing.

“We’d love to hear feedback from everyone using this, from JS-only developers coming to WP for the first time, through WordPress plugin and theme developers, all the way through to PHP developers not involved with WordPress,” he said.

Comments on the post provide a nice overview of places where the API is already in use in production all over the WordPress development community. A few examples include:

Human Made uses the API with client projects, i.e. to create a Node-powered frontend and maintain the familiar WordPress admin.

Reactor uses the API to create mobile apps that digest the API themselves.

Aesop Interactive uses the API with Lasso and also to power the WP Live Search plugin.

A large industrial real estate firm manages its properties via an internal proprietary .NET app with a public-facing site powered by WP. It uses the API to sync property data (in real time) between the internal app and the website so the real estate listings will always be current.

Join In, a site organizing volunteers in the UK, used the API to create an embeddable JS widget.

Per Soderlind used the WP REST API as a backend for an iOS application for the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy.

Modern Tribe is building sites that use the REST API to power both Handlebars and full page React templates in themes.

Those are just a small sampling of places where the API is being used to make WordPress more flexible for creating custom solutions. For many who are using the API or hoping to use it, the main hindrance is that it’s not yet in core.

“The biggest issue right now is that the REST API isn’t included in core,” a representative from Ashworth Creative commented. “If we build plugins or a theme that needs to consume data asynchronously, we’d either have to bundle the API and have to maintain it in our repositories as a dependency, or have clients install and maintain it on their own.”

WordPress developer Nate Wright echoed that opinion and is eager to be able to extend it for use in his products, without having to include it as a plugin.

“Put it in core, so that as a plugin developer I can make use of it in my products,” he said. “I built the most popular Restaurant Reservations plugin in the .org repo, and I am eager to add a robust capacity/table management component for it using the REST API and a jQuery/Underscore/Backbone stack.”

Early adopters have the unique opportunity to provide feedback on the REST API and help shape priorities for development. If you are using the API somewhere in the wild, make sure to leave your feedback on McCue’s post to help the team make any necessary changes required before it’s merged into core.