I built a visual API generator — no code, no prompts, just clean backend projects

Carlos Salamanca — Tue, 25 Nov 2025 00:05:42 +0000

✨ Introduction

For the past few weeks, I’ve been building a tool that I personally needed for a long time:
a way to generate complete backend projects without writing the same boilerplate over and over.

The result is GenAPI — a visual API generator that lets you design your data models in a UI and then export a fully working backend project.

🔗 Try it here: https://thegenapi.io

(No login required — 100% free at the moment)

🛠 Why I built this

As developers, we constantly repeat the same setup steps:

creating models/entities
defining controllers/services
configuring routes
setting up project structure
writing CRUD logic
preparing basic validations
wiring everything into a backend framework

After doing this hundreds of times across Node, Java, Python and PHP projects, I wanted a faster way.

Not AI-generated code.
Not templates.
A real visual builder that outputs a clean, ready-to-run backend.

🧩 How GenAPI works

The workflow is very simple:

Open the visual builder

You start with an empty canvas where you can create:

Entities
Fields
Types
Relationships
Optional constraints

Choose your backend framework

Once your models are ready, you pick the stack you want to export to.

Right now GenAPI supports:

Java (Spring Boot)
Java (Quarkus)
Node.js (Express)
Python (FastAPI)
PHP (Laravel)

Download the generated ZIP

GenAPI creates a complete backend project with:

Models / Entities
Controllers
Services
Routes
Basic CRUD logic
Validations
Clean folder structure
Dependencies installed
A README with instructions

👉 You run it locally and it just works.

No prompts.
No AI guesswork.
Just deterministic code based on your entities.

🎁 New feature: Starter Templates

To help new users get started quickly, I’m adding starter templates inside the builder:

Blog API
E-commerce
Booking System
CRM Lite

These load pre-made entities so you can test the tool instantly.

🚀 Who is GenAPI for?

This tool is ideal if you:

build prototypes frequently
generate small/medium backends
teach backend development
want to speed up CRUD-heavy work
start many client projects
hate repeating boilerplate code

🧪 What I’m currently working on

More export options
Better UI for relationships
SAP CAP export (CDS-based, OData out of the box)
Auto-documented APIs
Advanced constraints
Microservice export mode
A VSCode extension to sync entities

🙏 I’d love your feedback

Since GenAPI is still early, feedback from the dev community is extremely helpful.

Is the builder intuitive?
Does the generated code look clean?
What frameworks should I add next?
Would this be useful in your workflow?

Comments are 100% welcome.

🔗 Try it here: https://thegenapi.io

Thanks for reading! 🚀

DEV Community: Carlos Salamanca

I built a visual API generator — no code, no prompts, just clean backend projects