Let’s be real: if I see one more demo using the Swagger Pet Store API, I might lose it.
It’s cute. It’s nostalgic. But it’s also completely useless when you're trying to build or test real enterprise applications. No serious developer is building an inventory management system for a fictional animal adoption center—and yet, that’s still the go-to API for everything from tutorials to sandbox demos.
Here’s the problem: most free public APIs are either too simplistic, too toy-like, or flat-out irrelevant to the world we actually build for. I’m talking CRMs. ERPs. Logistics workflows. HR systems. Financial operations. You know—actual business logic. Try prototyping around that with a pet adoption form and an imaginary store backend. Good luck.
As developers, we’re told to “fail fast,” “iterate quickly,” and “prototype before you scale.” But how are we supposed to prototype enterprise-grade apps when there’s no realistic sandbox data to work with? The moment I want to mock up a sales pipeline, manage customer contracts, or simulate invoice processing, I hit a wall.
Sure, I can roll my own mock APIs. But that means wasting time modeling fake data, designing endpoints, and stringing together temporary logic—just to throw it away later. It’s inefficient, and frankly, it defeats the whole point of rapid prototyping.
So at Lonti, we decided: enough. If no one else is going to build realistic, reusable business APIs for developers, we will.
We built apiexplorer.io to give developers access to free, enterprise-grade demo APIs for prototyping and testing. These aren’t toy endpoints. These are full-featured, production-style APIs that simulate real-world business domains like CRM, invoicing, inventory, and more.
You’ll need a free Lonti account to grab your access credentials—but once you have them, these APIs are yours to use with any toolset or stack. Build with Postman, Swagger UI, curl, or your own backend—no need to use Lonti’s tools (though we hope you do).
We’re not locking you into our ecosystem. We just want to make real prototyping easier for every developer.
The Pet Store API was never meant for enterprise use cases. It was built to show off Swagger’s documentation format—and for that, it served its purpose. But it’s 2025 now. Developers need more than GET /pets and POST /orders.
We need APIs that:
Swagger’s demo doesn’t cut it. And honestly, neither do most “sample APIs” floating around GitHub.
When you’re using Martini to orchestrate APIs, Negroni to model business entities, and Bellini to build interfaces—it feels ridiculous to anchor your prototype in a fake pet adoption service. We’re building tools that can handle Fortune 500 workflows—why prototype with something built for tutorials?
We believe in low code, no limits. And that means prototyping shouldn’t be limited either.
We’re expanding our APIExplorer.io library to cover even more realistic business use cases. Got a process or system you wish you could prototype more easily? Let us know. We’re building this for you—for all of us tired of pretending our apps revolve around dogs named Fluffy.
In the meantime, ditch the Pet Store. It’s time to prototype like a pro.
Ready to get started?
Grab your free API credentials at apiexplorer.io and start building with real data today—whether you're using Lonti or not.
(But if you are using Martini, Negroni, or Bellini… things get even better.)