Buffer’s Legacy REST API is being fully retired

In Might, we launched Buffer’s GraphQL Public API, enabling builders to construct on Buffer. It is a strongly typed, GraphQL-first API with an MCP server, a CLI, and managed OAuth, working on the identical infrastructure as our personal apps. With it in place, we’re winding down the older API it replaces.

We’re retiring Buffer’s legacy REST API on February 1, 2027. After that date, requests to legacy endpoints will now not return knowledge; subsequently, all purchasers who’re nonetheless utilizing the legacy REST API are inspired to start out the migration course of.

How the REST API got here to be

We first launched Buffer’s public API again in 2012, with a small however mighty group of round 15 integrations like Pocket, IFTTT, and different early net favorites. It was constructed on REST, the usual on the time, and let builders schedule posts and handle profiles. By 2019, greater than 47,000 purchasers have been constructing on it.

Then the panorama shifted. Following privateness scandals like Cambridge Analytica, social platforms tightened their phrases of service and knowledge privateness necessities. Because of this, we needed to make sure that our customers’ knowledge is secure and prohibit how our API may very well be used. Across the identical time, our personal structure was evolving: we unified our once-separate merchandise beneath “One login, All of Buffer” and started consolidating the whole lot onto a single, fashionable GraphQL API. In October 2019, we closed registration for brand new legacy apps – we knew we could not supply the developer expertise we (and our companions) needed and not using a a lot greater funding.

That funding grew to become Buffer’s GraphQL Public API. Somewhat than preserve two API stacks with separate tooling – a heavy carry for a workforce our dimension – we have dedicated to at least one API that powers each our personal apps and yours. Retiring the legacy REST API is the ultimate step in that transition.

What’s altering

• The legacy REST API shall be absolutely retired on February 1, 2027. Requests to legacy endpoints will now not return knowledge.
• This impacts anybody nonetheless calling the legacy REST API endpoints.
• New consumer creation on the legacy API is already closed.
• Deprecation and sunsetting alerts shall be added to the legacy endpoints: commonplace Deprecation and Sundown headers plus a Hyperlink header pointing to the migration information.
• Two brownouts are deliberate earlier than sundown: November 11 and December 9, 2026. Brief scheduled interruptions the place legacy requests will quickly error out. All legacy purchasers who haven’t accomplished the migration shall be notified in regards to the brownouts forward of time.

Find out how to migrate to the brand new API

We have accomplished an intensive feature-parity evaluation between the brand new and legacy APIs, and practically each legacy functionality has a direct equal within the GraphQL API.

Acquainted ideas merely have new names – profiles are actually channels, and updates are actually posts. A couple of issues additionally work in a different way beneath GraphQL, they usually’re price understanding earlier than you migrate:

• Scheduling is per-post. Somewhat than managing recurring time slots on a profile, you resolve how every publish is scheduled: add it to the queue, set a particular time, or publish instantly.
• Posts are created one channel at a time. The place the legacy API accepted an array of profile IDs, you now ship one request per channel.
• Pagination is cursor-based as a substitute of page-and-offset, so it stays dependable at the same time as your queue modifications.
• Errors are returned as typed fields within the response physique, slightly than as HTTP standing codes.

For the total endpoint-by-endpoint mapping and code examples, see the REST API migration information. When you hit a spot that is blocking your migration, attain out to the Buffer workforce – we need to assist you to and make sure the migration goes easily.

When you need assistance migrating

When you preserve a legacy integration and need assistance migrating, attain out to us on Discord or ship us a message at developersupport@buffer.com – we will stroll by your migration or assist resolve a spot you hit. If a functionality you depend on does not have an equal, tell us, and we are going to work with you to discover a answer.