What is REST API?
REST (Representational State Transfer) is an architectural style for web APIs that models everything as resources, each with a URL, accessed using standard HTTP methods — GET to read, POST to create, PUT/PATCH to update, DELETE to remove. Responses are usually JSON.
REST APIs are stateless (each request is self-contained) and lean on HTTP features like status codes and caching, which makes them simple, scalable, and widely supported.
Key points
- Resources are identified by URLs (e.g. /users/1).
- HTTP verbs map to actions: GET, POST, PUT/PATCH, DELETE.
- Stateless — each request carries everything it needs.
- Uses HTTP status codes and caching by default.
Example
GET /users list users POST /users create a user GET /users/1 fetch one user DELETE /users/1 delete a user
Common uses
- Public and internal web APIs
- CRUD backends for web and mobile apps
- Resource-oriented microservices
- Anywhere HTTP caching and simplicity matter