Five Years and Petabytes of Data Later, Meet the Smash API
You’ve probably heard the news and it’s true: the Smash API is live!
The Smash API is the latest innovation from the team at Smash, but it’s also not new. How can that be?
It’s because the Smash API is the public face of the solution that is already used by 100,000 people every day to transfer millions of files every month. For five years it has powered file uploads and downloads by companies including Airbnb, CBS, Spotify, Samsung, and Coca Cola behind the scenes, and now it is available to integrate into workflows and reduce headaches for developers in industries worldwide.
From the very first file upload in 2017 to the launch of the Smash API in 2023, this is the story of Smash.
A Better Way to Upload Large Files
Smash was founded by four men with a shared frustration.
Uploading large files can be complicated and expensive. For enterprise employees, the problems that developers experienced with specialized services often saw them resort to tools that were easier to manage but far from secure. For small businesses and independent professionals, their only option was to work with less-than-efficient services or suffer through sub-optimal user experiences with ad-supported tools.
The Smash team realized that there was a real demand for a simple, secure, efficient, and cost-effective file upload solution. With an emphasis on uploading big files rapidly thanks to a network of cloud servers located close to end users, Smash built a following among business users ranging from individual creators through to some of the world’s largest media companies.
A year after launch and with the free offer gaining speed, Smash announced two paid plans: Smash Pro and Smash Team. These premium plans offering more features and faster uploads allowed individuals and teams to maintain their professional brand while supporting clients, end users, and greater automation of their own workflows.
Infrastructure and Applications for Enterprise File Transfer
With users embracing the simple and secure Smash file transfer interface, it was no surprise that investors soon came knocking. In 2019 Smash closed a fundraising round prefaced on a single notion: expanding and upgrading their upload and download solution for big files for enterprise customers.
One year on and the impact of that funding was already being felt. Smash expanded their reach to servers at 9 sites around the world, with performance gains for users thanks to storage proximity and ever-improving technology infrastructure. Smash Enterprise was launched to support the security and file management needs of businesses from growing startups to large public corporations, and a Smash mobile application quickly grew to 200,000 downloads. Mac users benefited, too, from a dedicated application that saved them from having to visit the Smash website to upload big files.
In 2022 this expansion and acceleration continued apace. Smash established itself as browser and OS agnostic, available on every browser and every mobile device. As the world of enterprise became more mobile and more remote, Smash responded by making file transfers even easier: no need to install an application, just bookmark a single address before uploading and downloading an unlimited number of files of any size.
In the same way that Smash was growing, so was the demand for uploading big files. Creatives, designers, media companies, printing firms, and industrial enterprise were transferring larger files more regularly. Developers reached out to the Smash team regularly to request (and later plead for!) an API they could fold into their workflows to make uploading files easier, faster, more secure and more reliable.
Their calls were answered in 2023 with the launch of the Smash API.
A Proven API for Big File Transfers
The Smash API that has been released this month is the latest innovation from Smash, but it has already proven itself every day of the last five years.
The Smash API is the same one that has supported file transfers on the Smash website, the Smash Pro and the Smash Team plans. It is the same one that has enabled big file uploads and downloads for Smash Enterprise clients, and it’s the same one that has enabled hundreds of thousands of users to upload large files on desktops and using native Android and iOS apps.
The experience that comes from serving more than 100,000 daily users and supporting the transfer of petabytes of files has ensured that the Smash API is robust, reliable, scalable, and user friendly. It is the culmination of five years of work and a testament to the commitment of Smash’s founding team to delivering a simple, secure, and high-performance file transfer solution.
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