01Introduction
Shipping has never been faster. A feature that took a sprint now takes an afternoon, and one developer with an AI assistant covers ground a small team used to need. Maintenance moved at its old speed. Someone still has to keep the PDF conversion working when a library changes, keep the VAT lookup matching the registry, keep the video pipeline standing when a 40-minute upload arrives.
So developers still reach for external services for the functionality around the edges of the product. Writing that code is the cheap part now. Owning it for three years is the expensive part. The real question is where those services come from, and who is responsible when one of them breaks at 2am.
Two platforms answer that differently. RapidAPI, now called API Hub and owned by Nokia since November 2024, is an open marketplace: it lists other people's APIs and passes your call through to whoever published it. ApyHub runs the APIs it offers, on its own infrastructure in dedicated EU and US regions, under one subscription.
A marketplace introduces you to a provider. ApyHub operates the endpoint, so uptime, quality and GDPR handling look the same across every service you call. Here is what that changes in practice.
02What changed at RapidAPI since 2024
Most comparisons still describe the RapidAPI of 2022. Three things have moved since.
Nokia acquired Rapid's technology and R&D unit on 13 November 2024, describing the hub as "used by thousands of active developers globally" (Nokia newsroom). Rapid was valued at $1 billion in 2022 and cut half its staff in April 2023 (TechCrunch).
The provider fee is now a flat 25% on all payments through the API Hub, updated effective 15 November 2025, paid out through PayPal only (Rapid docs).
And Rapid no longer publishes a catalog count. Its own pages claim "over five million," "more than 4 million," "over three million" and "over a million" developers in four different places.
The marketplace still runs, and plenty of small providers still use it because it handles billing and rate limiting for them. It is a different platform from the one most articles describe.
03ApyHub is not a marketplace
A marketplace is a directory with a payment layer. It lists what publishers upload, routes your call to their servers, and leaves hosting, uptime and compliance to each of them. Variance comes with the model.
ApyHub is an operational layer. Endpoints run on ApyHub infrastructure in the region you choose, which is what makes one standard possible across the whole catalog: the same uptime handling, the same GDPR posture, and machine-readable certification for GDPR, SOC 2 and ISO 27001 on every service. [VERIFY: provider docs also allow provider-hosted endpoints behind the gateway, so confirm the hosting wording before publishing.]
The effect is that your external services stop being separate risks to assess one by one. Word to PDF, disposable email detection and EU VAT validation come with the same guarantees, the same credential and the same bill.
04Side by side
| ApyHub | RapidAPI (API Hub) | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Hosted catalog of APIs it operates | Open marketplace listing third-party APIs |
| Who runs the endpoint | ApyHub, in EU and US regions | Each provider, wherever they host |
| Quality and uptime | One standard across the catalog | Varies by provider |
| Compliance | GDPR, SOC 2 and ISO 27001 certification per endpoint | Left to each provider |
| What you pay | One subscription covering every endpoint | A separate plan per API |
| Cost per call | Priced in atoms, reflecting the work done | Fixed by the provider's tier |
| Going over quota | Headroom pools across all endpoints | Per-call overage past each API's quota |
| Free tier | 5 calls a day and 3,000 atoms a month, no card | Free APIs need no card, freemium APIs do |
| Listing gate | Verification before listing | Self-service, live in minutes |
| Agent access | Every endpoint over ApyHub MCP | Per-API REST, no MCP surface |
| Who it is for | Developers, builders, no-code teams, business users in an assistant | Developers integrating REST endpoints |
Sources for the RapidAPI column: API pricing, payouts and finance, read 22 September 2026.
05What you actually pay
On RapidAPI you hold a subscription per API, with tiers set by each provider, commonly around $25, $75 and $150 a month. Calls past a quota are charged as overage. Six APIs means six subscriptions, six quotas and six renewal dates.
On ApyHub one subscription covers the catalog, and each call spends atoms. An atom is a unit of work, so a VAT check costs a few and a video watermarking job costs more. Every response reports the exact number of atoms that call used, so cost is visible per request rather than at the end of the month. We wrote about the reasoning in every API call costs what the work actually costs.
Because the headroom on your plan pools across every endpoint, a spike in one workload draws on the same balance instead of hitting one API's ceiling while quota you paid for elsewhere sits unused.
The free Starter plan gives 5 calls a day and 3,000 atoms a month with no card. Both limits apply together. Current plans are on the pricing page, and we compared free tiers across platforms in what the free tiers actually give you.
06What gets listed, and who checks
Rapid's listing flow is self-service and documented as live "in a matter of minutes." The only quality mechanism in its FAQ is to contact support about a misrepresented API.
The consequences have been studied. A paper presented at ACM CCS 2024 analyzed 32,089 APIs in the RapidAPI ecosystem and found 3,533 keys leaked in the wild, 1,709 APIs collecting sensitive data of which 94% lacked a complete privacy policy, and a "lack of certification" that enabled typosquatting and spam listings (Liao et al., A First Look at Security and Privacy Risks in the RapidAPI Ecosystem, December 2024).
ApyHub verifies before listing, and the bar is a trust bar: data provenance and redistribution rights, GDPR handling of personal data, license terms, and whether an API's primary function breaks someone else's terms of service. A gate keeps the catalog smaller, which is the honest cost of it.
07Using it from ChatGPT, Claude and your own agents
Every endpoint is callable over ApyHub MCP. An agent searches the catalog, reads the specification and makes the call in one session, with no wrapper to write and no tool definition per endpoint. Compared with a hand-built integration, that path uses 75% fewer tokens, returns consistent results across runs, and takes under 5 minutes to set up.
ApyHub MCP was accepted into the ChatGPT plugin directory in September 2026, listed as ApyHub EU and invoked with @ApyHub EU in a conversation. In Claude, Claude Code, Cursor and Mistral Le Chat the same server connects as a custom connector using your existing token.
This widens who the catalog serves. Developers call the REST endpoints. Builders and no-code teams use the same capabilities inside their own tools. Business users describe the task to an assistant: converting a folder of invoices, checking a supplier list for valid VAT numbers, cleaning signups with email verification.
RapidAPI has no native MCP surface, so an agent there needs a wrapper you write and a credential per API. For more on the agent side, see how ApyHub's MCP server works, how AI agents use APIs, the five APIs every AI agent needs and chaining API calls into workflows agents can run.
08If you publish APIs
Rapid takes a flat 25%, pays through PayPal only, and aggregates transactions so January revenue arrives in March. Its plans are flat tiers, so a call that costs you very little to serve and one that costs you a lot are billed the same.
On ApyHub you price per endpoint in atoms, change it when you want, keep the IP in your API, sell the same API elsewhere, and publish in under 10 minutes from an endpoint or an existing OpenAPI spec. Payouts run monthly. [VERIFY: revenue split needs Samuel's approval before appearing in public copy, so it is deliberately not stated here.]
Pricing can also be dynamic. You set a floor price, then report the real cost of each request in the response, and the gateway settles the difference. That suits video processing, document pipelines and AI endpoints, where one request can cost ten times another. A flat tier forces you to overcharge light users or lose money on heavy ones.
More on the economics in how to monetize an API in 2026, and on making your API discoverable to agents in how to design APIs to be found by AI agents.
09Where each one fits
RapidAPI suits the long tail: regional sports data, a niche public dataset, an unusual feed, or a prototype you might abandon next week. Nothing matches an open marketplace for breadth.
ApyHub suits work that ships, where the constraints are operational: one bill, predictable cost per call, the same uptime and compliance standard across every service, EU or US residency on one subscription, and agents or colleagues who need the capability without an integration.
Where ApyHub has gaps, honestly: the catalog covers over 1,500 endpoints and capabilities and keeps growing, which is a fraction of what an open marketplace lists, so a niche API may not be there. Enterprise SLAs and formal procurement features are still growing. Atoms take a few calls to get a feel for. A wider view of the category, including APILayer and AWS Marketplace, is in the best API marketplaces.
10Conclusion
The two platforms answer different questions. RapidAPI answers "does an API exist for this," and its long tail is still the best answer to that. ApyHub answers "can every external service my product depends on meet the same bar for uptime, hosting and compliance, on one bill."
If you are exploring, breadth is worth the variance. If you are shipping, an operated catalog is the steadier path, and the same endpoints reach your code, your agents and your colleagues in ChatGPT or Claude.
11FAQ
Is RapidAPI still active in 2026? Yes. Nokia acquired it in November 2024 and the public API Hub still operates, with docs updated as recently as November 2025.
How much does RapidAPI cost? There is no platform fee for consumers. You pay each API's provider-set plan separately, commonly $25 to $150 a month, plus overage past the quota.
How is ApyHub's pricing different? One subscription covers every endpoint, and each call spends atoms based on the work it does. The response reports what that call cost.
Does ApyHub host the APIs itself? Yes. Endpoints run on ApyHub infrastructure in dedicated EU and US regions, which is how one uptime, quality and GDPR standard covers every service.
What is a good RapidAPI alternative for production work? Look for verification before listing, readable compliance artifacts, and one billing relationship instead of one per API. Those three are what ApyHub was built around.
Does ApyHub have as many APIs as RapidAPI? No. ApyHub covers over 1,500 endpoints and capabilities and keeps growing. Breadth is traded for a quality bar on everything in the catalog.
Can I use ApyHub inside ChatGPT or Claude? Yes. It is in the ChatGPT plugin directory as ApyHub EU, and connects to Claude, Claude Code, Cursor and Mistral Le Chat as a custom connector.
Do I need to be a developer to use ApyHub? No. Developers call the REST endpoints, and anyone using an assistant with ApyHub MCP connected can describe the task in plain language.
How do I test an API before integrating it? Every service page has a Playground for running the endpoint with your own input. Outside the browser, Voiden stores each request as a Markdown file you can commit next to your code.
Can I move an API I already list on RapidAPI? Yes, and you can keep both listings. ApyHub asks for no exclusivity and you keep the IP in your API.
12About ApyHub
ApyHub is a curated API catalog and trusted operational layer for developers and AI agents. One subscription in atoms covers a catalog of over 1,500 capabilities that keeps growing, each endpoint carrying machine-readable certification for GDPR, SOC 2 and ISO 27001, and each callable by AI agents over ApyHub MCP, in ChatGPT through the plugin directory or in Claude and other MCP clients as a connector. ApyHub is headquartered in Amsterdam with offices in the Netherlands, Greece and India, and serves 65,000+ monthly developer workspaces [VERIFY: re-confirm before campaign use]. The free tier needs no card. If you build APIs, you can publish one in under 10 minutes.
13Sources
- Nokia, Nokia acquires Rapid technology and R&D unit, 13 November 2024.
- Rapid, Payouts and finance and API pricing, read 22 September 2026.
- Liao, Cheng, Luo, Song, Cai, Yao and Hu, A First Look at Security and Privacy Risks in the RapidAPI Ecosystem, ACM CCS 2024, December 2024.
- TechCrunch, RapidAPI, valued at $1 billion last year, cuts staff by 50%, 25 April 2023.