You know, we got used to various bots, scrapers, and DDoS attempts that abuse our API. But you guys took it to the next level using our data without permission to promote your explorer and criticizing StellarExpert UX & functionality on top of it.
First, about the API. The endpoints you are using (specifically ledger/ledger-stats, asset-stats/overall, asset/, asset/{asset-id}) are not public. It means that they are not standardized and not intended for usage in third-party applications. The API contracts, endpoint URL addresses, and the data itself for private endpoints are subject to change without further notice. Moreover, our firewall proactively finds and blocks bots and other suspicious activity based on the access pattern. Once your proxy server reaches a certain threshold, your IP address will be blacklisted and blocked. So please remove all references to our private API endpoints to avoid service disruption.
The reason behind this is that most of the private endpoints extensively use resources on our servers, slowing down operations for other users. Until we find a way to optimize resource consumption, those endpoints will remain non-public. Here is the list of the public CORS-enabled StellarExpert APIs that can be used by third-party services free of charge with the guaranteed data contracts and API format.
Regarding two Medium posts that highlight the "shortcomings" of StellarExpert and SteExp.
If you look at the other explorers, you can see that they don't let you view full details of each operation.
Actually, you can view the operation details on both SteExp and StellarExpert – it just always shown in the context of the parent transaction.
And you surely can use a search to find the operation. Sorry but it's hard to believe that you decided to illustrate your post with a screenshot of the search results page instead of the operation details page, which was one click away from that interface.
Showing operations without a parent transaction context does not provide complete information to users. For instance, people often want to see a transaction memo and have a direct reference to the enclosing ledger. Also, the concept of Stellar transaction-operation relations is quite hard to understand for regular users and developers with a background in other blockchains. That's the reason why we don't show the operation properties separately from the transaction. Initially, we also built it as a separate page, but decided to remove it in favor of transaction-based extended interface.
Each field also features a description that displays when you hover your mouse over the question mark icon. These descriptions are perfect if you're just learning about the network.
This is also positioned as a super cool and unique feature. But we have similar hints on StellarExpert for like three years now. And Etherscan added them a long time ago. So what is the novelty?
Speaking of, I spotted a striking resemblance between your interface and Etherscan.
You might want to check the hints, as some of them contain texts clearly not related to Stellar. There is no such thing as "mining" on Stellar.
...other explorers don't give you a list view of the operations in a ledger
That's simply not true – all transactions and operations can be found directly on the ledger info page (example).
We just need a modern, capable and up-to-date explorer to show all of these amazing features, designed based on understanding user needs and expectations. Today, the lack of a suitable tool has created a deep gap between users and the Stellar network, and users cannot make good use of the Stellar Network's capacities.
I'm not going to comment on the design, as this topic is highly subjective. I really like the color palette of StellarScan dark theme. But all these numerous Etherscan.io clones (https://tronscan.org/ and https://tezos.id/ and many others) blindly copy the basic Bootsrap-based theme and layouts without paying any attention to the way the data is presented in some particular context. Early versions of StellarExpert were also built on Bootstrap, much resembling your current design except the color palette. But it evolved as I gathered requirements, and this simplistic design is a result of multiple changes inspired by community feedback.
Medium articles and this announcement topic put a massive emphasis on the "attractive user interface" and design concept. But is StellarExpert is so bad that we have a "deep gap between users and the Stellar network"? Or maybe your clone of the Etherscan interface will automatically allow people to embrace Stellar?
It's really strange to see that 4 of 5 "magic features" of such a complex and comprehensive tool as a ledger explorer are focused on aesthetics (theme, responsive design, layout). And the only technical aspect (the "watchlist") is simply a bookmark manager.
As @dzham pointed, there are no specifics about what you plan to implement in the future. If you want to create just one more thin wrapper on top of Horizon APIs – well, you are on the right way, you have about 50% ready. But if you want to build a system that provides extended ledger data and analytics as StellarExpert does it, you have a long road ahead. And you should really start with digging into Stellar internals to figure out which data you can extract, how to aggregate it, and what features you can add to your roadmap. Judging from the lonely chart on LumenScan that shows a generic demo data instead of real statistics, you haven't made progress there yet. I'd say that if you have the right people in the team and a cluster of servers, in a year you'll be able to finish your own ledger processing framework, API, and aggregated data.
As a closing note, I have strangely mixed feelings regarding your project. On the one hand, you are trying to build a direct competitor service to StellarExpert while using our APIs without permission and trying to illustrate your "advantages" by demonstrating irrelevant cases directed on StellarExpert and boasting features that have been implemented in other explorers years ago.
On the other hand, you clearly invested some effort into this. Community benefits from healthy competition, and I will be happy to see new players in this field. For example, we added a dark theme to StellarExpert last week following the feedback provided for your project. We are heavily invested in the in-depth ledger analysis, so it's easy to forget about such simple things that make the life of our users more comfortable.
In any case, good luck with this endeavor.
P.S. Please remove all usages of our private APIs asap.
