Introduction:
Developers are increasingly using third-party APIs to create their apps, although depending on the API, expenses might rise quickly. Lunar.dev Companies have needed help comprehending and controlling these expenses.
That is the function of Lunar. Dev. This application was created from the ground up to assist developers in keeping an eye on, managing, and taking the first steps toward controlling their API expenditures. The tool’s open-source version was released today, and the business also revealed a $6 million seed investment.
According to Eyal Solomon, CEO of Lunar, businesses have grown dependent on third-party APIs to easily add features to their apps, such as instant messaging, payments, and access to substantial language models.
Although adding this kind of sophisticated functionality may be made simpler with the help of these APIs, there may be a monthly usage cost associated with it. “As companies increased their use of third-party APIs, we observed them developing in-house solutions to oversee and implement regulations on that usage effectively,” Solomon stated to TechCrunch.
They started developing one after realizing there wasn’t a workable solution for controlling such third-party APIs. “We view things entirely from the perspective of consumption, assisting businesses in cutting expenses while preserving optimal performance and efficiency in their use of APIs,” he stated.
Lunar.dev Wants to Help Developers:
Lunar.dev Wants to Help Developers [Source of Image: Techcrunch.com]
To deploy the Lunar proxy and Lunar interceptors, a Docker container must be launched. These components allow the API provider to observe API traffic through the development pipeline. A direct connection to the APIs is unnecessary for Lunar to comprehend usage. It starts automatically intercepting API traffic as soon as it is installed.
Through a command line interface, developers can establish use limits, such as the maximum amount of money that can be spent, and those policies are applied when traffic passes through the interceptors. The roadmap includes proposals for a graphical interface for setting policies.
All of the policies, their implementation, and their enforcement occur “sitting in the developer pipeline, sitting between your natural traffic from your production environment to the API providers,” according to Solomon.
The company launched an open-source version of the product to encourage developer buy-in. Their long-term revenue strategy is to develop a managed solution for businesses that prefer to work with something other than unprocessed open-source software. The open source component is crucial to Solomon’s company and its growth, and Lunar is releasing the product under the MIT license.
Being open-source is one of the main pillars supporting our platform, and we are one of them. Solomon stated that we’re committed to providing our community of developers and engineering teams with it.
Although the company is tiny, with eight people split between Tel Aviv and San Francisco, it is hiring and seeking R&D and marketing staff. Uncork Capital led the $6 million seed round, with participation from Angular Ventures.
