APIs, or Application Programming Interfaces, allow different software systems to communicate with each other. They are the backbone of modern web development, enabling everything from social media integrations to payment gateways. One of the most popular architectures for building APIs is REST (Representational State Transfer).

What is REST?

REST is an architectural style that uses HTTP requests to retrieve or send data. It operates around a set of principles, including statelessness, resource identification through URIs, and using standard HTTP methods like GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE. RESTful APIs allow clients and servers to exchange data in a structured way, usually in JSON or XML formats.

“REST’s simplicity and scalability have made it the go-to architecture for web services.”

Understanding REST is essential for building scalable, maintainable APIs. While there are alternatives like GraphQL, REST remains the most widely used because of its simplicity, flexibility, and the vast amount of resources available for learning.