It is a tedious job to write api documentations, and we have been using word documents and excel spreadsheets to create api documents.
But they are difficult to follow and search though, what if there was an easier and cleaner way to create API documents? When I started working on my latest project I was searching for an efficient way to write API documents and a way to generate beautiful documentations, my quest for finding the best api documentation tool lead me to API Blueprint.

What is API Blueprint?

API blueprint is a language based on Markdown which allows you to write API documents clearly, moreover, it has great tools which takes in your API blueprint document and convert it into beautiful HTML API documentation and much more.

Useful tools:

Here are some tools which I find useful, that you can use with your API documentation written using API Blueprint. These tools make the API blueprint documents very powerful. There are tools generate beautify HTML documentation to even create mock API servers.

Creating Online documentation:

There is a web app called as Apiary, which allows you to write in API blueprint format, and it generates beautiful online documentation, it also provides mock API server which will emulate your API based on the documentation, which is pretty useful if you don’t have the API server ready yet and want to use the APIs for prototype the applications.
It will allow you to quickly build and test the API, without writing a single line of code.

API blueprint document into HTML documentation

There is an awesome tool called Aligo which will allow creating beautiful HTML documentation from the API blueprint document.

API blueprint document into POSTMAN collection

A utility called as Blueman allows you to convert the API blueprint domination into POSTMAN collection, which you can import into your POSTMAN REST Client.

Local Mock Server

API Blueprint Mock Server create a local API mock server using the API blueprint which you have provided, which you can use to prototype REST APIs.