What are the advantages of calling APIs from the server side using PHP rather than client-side JavaScript?

Calling APIs from the server side using PHP is advantageous because it helps keep sensitive information, such as API keys, hidden from the client-side code, reducing the risk of exposing them to potential attackers. Additionally, server-side processing can help improve performance by offloading the API calls to the server, reducing the load on the client's device. Finally, server-side code can handle errors more gracefully and provide better error handling mechanisms compared to client-side JavaScript.

<?php

// Make API call from server side using PHP cURL
$api_url = 'https://api.example.com/data';
$api_key = 'YOUR_API_KEY';

$ch = curl_init($api_url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, [
    'Authorization: Bearer ' . $api_key
]);

$response = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

// Process the API response
if ($response) {
    $data = json_decode($response, true);
    // Do something with the data
} else {
    // Handle API call failure
    echo 'Error making API call';
}