Ask HN: How many API requests does the average mobile app make in a day?

4 pointspla3rhat3r10y ago5 comments

Sorry if this seems elementary, but it came up in conversation and I realized there's not a clear metric around this.

5 comments

It depends greatly on what you're doing. For Facebook or Twitter, in typical use? Hundreds or thousands, but not hundreds of thousands.

For, I don't know, a podcast app, it could be dozens for most users, low hundreds for power-users.

There exist very lucrative mobile apps where the answer is likely single digits. (In addition to some which make no requests at all, of course.)

pla3rhat3rOP10y ago

I should have been more clear. I was looking at how many API calls a typical app would make when gathering data. Is it in the hundred, thousands? On average. Or that too wide of a question to get an accurate metric?

dennybritz10y ago

It's too wide of a question because of several reasons:

1. What do you count as an API request? Do you mean requests to "external" APIs? Or do you mean requesting content from the actual app server (e.g. Facebook loading timeline content)? Which API requests are you interested in?

2. What is a "typical app"? A game? A news reader? Twitter?

Even if someone could give you an answer that answer would most likely be irrelevant. API requests are a design choice. You can build the same app making 100 requests or 1 request for the same content. Both have tradeoffs.

Obviously it also depends on how much the user uses the app.

pla3rhat3rOP10y ago

Thanks for the feed back Denny.

1. In this case an API request would be GET and POST of data.

2. I'm looking for a range here. And this is just gathering data from an app. So on the high end think Candy Crush. On the low end, your everyday lower tier app.

I recognize the API design is a choice, but in this case I'm looking to find out how many API requests would typically be made to gather data for the most popular app vs. an everyday run of the mill app.

Thanks again!

benologist10y ago

There's no clear metric because it's dependent on how many requests each individual API the app has integrated or built.

To find out you would probably have to test a lot of apps yourself and extrapolate from that.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

5 comments

patio1110y ago

It depends greatly on what you're doing. For Facebook or Twitter, in typical use? Hundreds or thousands, but not hundreds of thousands.

For, I don't know, a podcast app, it could be dozens for most users, low hundreds for power-users.

There exist very lucrative mobile apps where the answer is likely single digits. (In addition to some which make no requests at all, of course.)

pla3rhat3rOP10y ago

dennybritz10y ago

It's too wide of a question because of several reasons:

2. What is a "typical app"? A game? A news reader? Twitter?

Obviously it also depends on how much the user uses the app.

pla3rhat3rOP10y ago

Thanks for the feed back Denny.

1. In this case an API request would be GET and POST of data.

2. I'm looking for a range here. And this is just gathering data from an app. So on the high end think Candy Crush. On the low end, your everyday lower tier app.

Thanks again!

benologist10y ago

There's no clear metric because it's dependent on how many requests each individual API the app has integrated or built.

To find out you would probably have to test a lot of apps yourself and extrapolate from that.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse