UP9 has acquired London-based MockLab, the creator of the open source API mocking project WireMock. The acquisition is likely to expand the test automation capabilities of UP9, which uses ML technologies to provide a modern alternative to time consuming and antiquated API testing methods. As part of the acquisition, the creator of WireMock, Tom Akehurst, will join UP9 as Chief Technology Officer.

A mock API simulates the interface to an external system in order to support testing, troubleshooting and prototyping without having to depend on the real thing. API mocks are essential when a newly developed service, that is part of a distributed system, depends on internal or external services to perform reliably.

API mocking is increasingly important in cloud native environments, where it enables developers to integrate functional and performance testing into their workflows and increase both productivity and agility.

Alon Girmonsky, CEO and co-founder of UP9, said: “WireMock is a significant player in the API economy, and by combining it with UP9’s existing API monitoring and traffic analysis capabilities, modern cloud-native developers can now develop faster and find problems quicker.”

WireMock was created by Tom Akehurst in 2011. With the rapid growth of microservice adoption and the booming API economy, the popularity of WireMock grew to 1.6 million monthly downloads.