Today I found out about the ArcGIS API for Python. I was wondering if you could use this to (eventually) replace ArcPy?
Recently I have been doing analyses that require cloud based solutions. When using AWS, Docker and Jupyter it is very convenient to stick with a Unix based OS such as Ubuntu. However, the Unix alternatives for ArcGIS have their own limitations as well such as the always hard to install python bindings for the GDAL library. ArcGIS for Python operates cross platform.
Perhaps there are the things I should and should not expect from the ArcGIS API for Python.
Perhaps Arcpy is going to disappear altogether.
Best Answer
From Overview of the ArcGIS API for Python:
From Essential ArcPy vocabulary:
Since ArcPy is part of the Geoprocessing framework of ArcGIS Desktop, and the ArcGIS API for Python is implemented using ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Enterprise, I think it is safe to say that the two are complementary, and at this stage there does not seem to be any indication that one will subsume the other in the foreseeable future.
The ArcGIS Pro Python Reference page tells us how Esri's Software Development view the two:
Although both come free with ArcGIS Desktop, when they wrote "complimentary libraries" I suspect that they meant "complementary libraries".