Currency conversion is critical in facilitating international trade, commerce, and finance in today’s global economy. Individuals, businesses, and institutions worldwide require reliable currency conversion services daily. Whether you’re a tourist seeking to exchange money, a business owner conducting transactions abroad, or an investor diversifying your portfolio, you need an accurate and dependable currency converter API.
In this roundup, you’ll walk through building your own real-time currency converter app with free APIs. Additionally, you’ll learn the necessary steps, starting with finding the suitable free currency API to use, and then we’ll guide you through creating both the front-end and back-end of your app. With this guide, you’ll be able to create a currency converter that’s correct and up-to-date. Moreover, you can use it whenever you need it.
But first, let’s cover up some essential “quickies”!
What Are Currency Exchange APIs?
The tools or programs that developers can incorporate into an application or website to enable exchange rate data are known as currency exchange APIs, allowing businesses and individuals to stay updated with market values quickly.
Currency exchange APIs are able to bring current and historical prices by supporting an extent of currency types. The APIs also feature detailed documentation, an intuitive dashboard, and a user interface and also stand with numerous file formats, such as JSON, CSV, XML, etc., for data return.
Why Do You Need Currency Exchange APIs?
Currency conversion APIs play a crucial role in international trading due to the regular fluctuations in currency values. Its programming enables traders to exchange currencies and make wise business decisions effortlessly.
We will go over each feature of API in brief below:
- Accurate: A reliable currency exchange API will provide accurate data that is routinely updated due to swings in market values.
- Supports Multiple Currencies: Currency exchange APIs can process the majority of currencies for their swap and conversion. You can manage your business and interact with numerous markets with its operations.
- Comprehensive Data Sources: These APIs create an information platform by getting updates from tens of thousands of data sources, from financial institutions, financial providers, and global banks to commercial sources. It involves recent data and past information that may go back several months or years.
- Easy to Use: With ease, the developers incorporate the APIs’ code snippets either with websites or applications. They can refer to the comprehensive API documentation, code samples, and straightforward API structure.
- Security and Performance: Providers of APIs ensure your API is safe and operates more quickly without causing problems or security flaws. As a result, they provide vital security features, including HTTPS connections and bank-level encryption, of the highest standard in the market.
Is There a Free Currency Convertor API?
The initial step in building a real-time currency converter app is to select the right APIs. There are numerous free currency convertor APIs available on the internet. But the two most popular free currency converter APIs are Fixer and Currencylayer APIs. Let’s have a closer look at both free currency converter APIs.
Fixer
Fixer is a reliable currency conversion API and provides historical data or current exchange rates for 170 currencies. It sources information from reliable financial data providers, including European Central Bank. Additionally, if you use Fixer, it’ll give you the correct currency conversion rates. One of the most outstanding features of the Fixer is that its update rates every 60 seconds, and the superfast Fixer API responds within milliseconds. Moreover, it is secured with bank-grade 256-bit SSL encryption. Also, the documentation is very easy-to-follow. You can check the free plans & pricing here.
Coinlayer API
On the other hand, the Coinlayer exchange rates API provides real-time exchange rates for 385 currencies. It delivers data in JSON format and is compatible with various programming languages like Java, JavaScript, and PHP. The API offers a free plan that provides up to 250 requests monthly, which is suitable for small applications. The API also offers paid plans with more features and higher request limits. You can check the complete documentation here. To get your free API key, sign up here.
Process of Building Real-Time Currency Converter App
APIs are sets of protocols, routines, and tools for building software applications. APIs allow developers to access and use third-party application services and data. In this case, we will use free currency converter APIs to provide real-time currency conversion rates to our users. Here are some steps for creating a real-time App.
Choosing the Right API
The initial step in building a real-time currency data converter app is to select a reliable and accurate API. There are various APIs available on the market, but not every API gives you real-time data or supports multiple currencies.
Designing the Frontend
After selecting an API, the next step is to design the front end of your app. The front end is the user-facing part of an app and displays the user interface. It allows users to interact with the app. In order to design the front end, you’ll require to select a programming language and a framework. There are numerous options available, but we recommend using Javascript and React, Angular, and Vue.js, as they are easy to learn and widely used. To get started:
- Create a new React app using the create-react-app command, and install the necessary dependencies, like Axios for API requests and Bootstrap for styling.
- Create a form that allows users to input the amount they want to convert currencies.
- Add a button that triggers an API request to get the exchange rate for the selected world currencies.
- Once API returns the exchange rate, calculate the converted amount and display it to the user.
In addition, you can add features like a dropdown menu allowing users to select their preferred base currency or save conversion history.
Forming the Backend
After designing the front end, the next is to form a backend of the app. The backend makes API requests, processes data, and sends it back to the front end. To start the backend, you’ll need to select a server-side programming language and a framework. We recommend using Node.js and Express because they are easy to use and widely supported.
- Begin by creating a new Node.js project and installing the necessary dependencies, like Express and Axios. Next, form a way that handles currency conversion requests.
- When a user sends a currency conversion request, the route should make an API request to the selected API, passing the selected currencies and the amount to be converted.
- Once the API returns the exchange rate, the route should compute the converted amount and send it back to the front end.
- You can also include more features like caching the exchange rate to reduce API requests or implementing error handling to ensure the app handles unexpected errors gracefully.
Deploying the App
After completing the front-end and back-end development, the next step is to deploy the app to a web server. Many options are available for deploying web apps, but we recommend using PaaS(Platform-as-a-service) [1] provider, like Firebase [2] or Heroku [3].
Fixer – A Lightweight API for Real-Time Current & Historical Forex Conversation
Fixer; is a reliable currency converter API with some exceptional & mind-blowing features. With this, you can access the current and historical foreign exchange rate data as well, which are sourced from dependable data providers; the European Central Bank is one example.
The impressive part, Fixer can support 170 different currencies, which is a sizable quantity. The higher version API of the Fixer answers in milliseconds, and it updates the rates every 60 seconds. With bank-grade 256-bit SSL encryption, it has been protected. The Fixer also provides documentation in an approachable format. Plus, it contains code samples for many different programming languages, including Python and Javascript. Integrating Fixer into your online application only takes a few minutes when using the documentation.
For instance, if you run into a problem, you can always receive world-class technical support to get it resolved as soon as possible; as a result, leaving it behind is the best currency converter available. Fixer currency exchange API is a renowned integration for applications that offers a Free Plan to enjoy its exceptional features.
Final Verdict
Free currency APIs are like a magic wand for programmers to power up their currency exchange game without exceeding their budget. These APIs are powered by advanced features to even beat the premium APIs when it comes to Fixer and Coinlayer. These two Apis are ranked as the most reliable, lightweight, and easy to implement Currency exchange APIs in the developer world. Moreover, you can test these APIs with free plans, and if satisfied, you can subscribe to the paid plan to achieve an unbeatable currency exchange setup.
FAQs
Is There a Free Currency Converter API?
Fixer currency exchange rates API is a renowned integration for applications that offers a Free Plan to enjoy its exceptional features.
What Is Fixer API?
Fixer is known to be a simple and lightweight API that delivers the current and historical foreign exchange rates. Sign Up for Free.
How Many Currencies Does Fixer Support?
According to the current and historical rates, Fixer has the standard capacity to run over the exchange rates to 170 different currencies.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_as_a_service
[2] https://firebase.google.com/
[3] https://www.heroku.com/
Recent Comments