AsyncAPI

AsyncAPI is an open industry standard designed for defining and describing asynchronous, event driven APIs. It brings the same clarity that OpenAPI provides for RESTful interfaces, but for systems built on streams, and real time messaging.

How it differs from OpenAPI

OpenAPI was created for REST APIs, and it works beautifully for REST, but it does not describe the behaviors of streaming, or asynchronous messaging systems.

AsyncAPI specifications helps define Event Driven systems that is built on one or more protocols like Kafka, MQTT, HTTP, SSE, WebSocket and more.

The structure AsyncAPI uses aligns naturally with how streaming systems work:

• Servers – Define server connections, URLs, and protocol details
• Channels – Configure topics, message paths, and communication channels
• Operations – Specify publish and subscribe operations for APIs
• Components – Manage reusable elements such as schemas, messages, and security definitions

AsyncAPI: Skeleton of API Product in the Zilla Platform

Zilla Platform treats AsyncAPI as the backbone of how event driven interactions are modeled, validated, secured, and exposed as fully managed API Products. Instead of making developers reason about protocol details or broker semantics, Zilla Platform uses AsyncAPI as the single source of truth that defines how an API Product should behave across all supported protocols.

Extract Spec: Starting from scratch

New to AsyncAPI? No problem.

The Extract Specifications feature in Zilla Platform allows you to generate API specifications directly from a registered Kafka Cluster and its associated Schema Registry, allowing you to get started quickly without manually creating specifications from scratch.

Using Existing AsyncAPI Spec

If your team already has AsyncAPI specifications, Zilla Platform can ingest them directly and turn them into operational API Products. Existing contracts become immediately actionable.

Iterating and Evolving

As your data streams mature and new requirements emerge, you can version your AsyncAPI documents to reflect those changes. Zilla Platforms supports deploying multiple versions of a specification, enabling different use cases while ensuring a smooth evolution of your API Products over time.

Why we chose AsyncAPI?

AsyncAPI solves a core challenge of event driven systems: lack of visibility and lack of consistency. Streaming platforms often grow organically, with topics, schemas, consumers, and producers evolving independently.

Before you can productize any data stream, you need a complete, unambiguous understanding of what exists and how it behaves.

What does User gain because of AsyncAPI?

Standardized Contract for Every API Product

AsyncAPI gives every streaming interaction a clear, consistent, and human & machine-readable contract.

This eliminates ambiguity, prevents schema drift, and ensures all teams producers, consumers, platform share the same understanding of how the API Product behaves.

Ease Integration with Third-party vendors & external partners

Because AsyncAPI is an open, vendor neutral industry standard, it becomes a universal language for describing real time APIs.

Third-party vendors, external developers, and integration partners can rely on the AsyncAPI document to explore & consume published API Products.