Zoho CRM has SDKs available for Python, Node JS, PHP and Java. If you’re a developer, you’ll generally find these SDKs helpful though there are some stumbling blocks. There’s a big hurdle to getting started: OAuth. Zoho has chosen to require OAuth even when you’re doing machine 2 machine (M2M) communication with your own CRM. OAuth makes a lot of sense when you’re publishing an app that will be used by many different CRMs (e.g. the Smooth Messenger mobile app uses OAuth to securely access data in your CRM). For an M2M scenario, OAuth adds a lot of complexity and arguably is no more secure than using an API key (which is the route most other SaaS vendors offer). Basically you have to jump through many complicated hoops in order to get an OAuth refresh token (which is really no different from an API key).
I’m not a big fan of this approach but the decision has been made so we’ve gotta learn to deal with it.
Here are two videos that show you how to work with the Zoho CRM API in an M2M context.