How do I track which API endpoints are used most?

To track which API endpoints are used most, you typically want to measure request count per route over time, then rank the results.

Simple approach

Log every API request with at least:

• endpoint/path
• HTTP method
• timestamp
• status code
• latency
• user/client ID if relevant

Then aggregate:

• requests per endpoint
• requests per endpoint per time window (hour/day/week)
• optionally filter by:
  • success vs error
  • authenticated user / tenant
  • client app
  • region

Example metrics to collect

For each request:

• GET /users/{id}
• POST /orders
• response time
• 2xx / 4xx / 5xx
• caller identity

Then compute:

• top endpoints by total requests
• top endpoints by unique users
• top endpoints by error rate
• top endpoints by traffic growth

Tools you can use

If you already have logs

• ELK / OpenSearch
• Datadog Logs
• Splunk
• CloudWatch Logs + Insights
• Grafana Loki

If you want metrics directly

• Prometheus with labeled counters like http_requests_total{route="/users", method="GET"}
• OpenTelemetry + your backend/observability platform

If you’re behind an API gateway / proxy

Many gateways provide this out of the box:

• Kong
• NGINX / NGINX Plus
• AWS API Gateway
• Apigee
• Azure API Management
• Cloudflare

Recommended implementation

If you control the app, add middleware that increments a counter per route.

Example concept

• Normalize paths so /users/123 becomes /users/:id
• Increment:
  • http_requests_total{route="/users/:id", method="GET"} += 1

This avoids treating every user ID as a separate endpoint.

Useful dashboards

Create charts for:

• Top 10 endpoints by request volume
• Requests over time by endpoint
• Error rate by endpoint
• Latency by endpoint
• Unique callers by endpoint

Important note

Make sure you track route templates, not raw URLs, or your data will be too fragmented.

If you want, I can show you:

1. a code example in Python/Node/Go,
2. a Prometheus metric setup, or
3. how to do this with logs / SQL / Grafana.