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Introduction to Web API Architectural Styles

Explore essential web API architectural styles such as REST, GraphQL, and gRPC. Understand their characteristics, benefits, and tradeoffs to make informed decisions when designing APIs. Learn how to evaluate each style based on your API's functional and performance requirements for effective product architecture.

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Introduction

In recent years, APIs' commercial usage has exponentially increased with web and mobile application development. Along with the usage of APIs, it's pretty obvious that APIs can take several different forms. When developers begin to design an API, it’s common to first decide which style/specification to use. More often than not, they opt for REST, as over 90% of developers have adopted this styleSimpson, J. 2022. “20 Impressive API Economy Statistics | Nordic APIs |.” Nordic APIs. February 9, 2022. https://nordicapis.com/20-impressive-api-economy-statistics/ ‌. However, after analyzing their technical requirements, developers can decide that their API should be handled through a different approach. In this chapter, we’ll discuss architectural styles for APIs and how they differ from each other. Moreover, we’ll examine which architectural style is suitable for which use case.

What is an architectural style?

An architectural style defines the rules and protocols to be utilized when creating our APIs. They are large-scale, standardized methods through which the system's processes are designed. These predefined ...