Why REST? Understanding the Benefits of REST API
The development world is a quickly evolving one, and businesses that want to stay ahead of the curve need to be capable of adapting to ever-evolving digital technologies. So, promoting a “restful” application programming interface (API) may seem anti-productive—but it’s exactly the opposite. Businesses that offer online services use APIs to communicate between systems. Among the various types of APIs, representational state transfer, or REST, APIs are one of the most widely used. In fact, around 70% of all public APIs are REST APIs. Why? Because despite the lackadaisical speed the name implies, they’re actually the workhorses of APIs.
Read on to learn key characteristics of the REST architectural style, how it works, why REST API is so important and widely used, security measures to consider and what to look for in a REST API provider.
What Is REST API?
To understand REST API, one must first know that an application program interface, or API, is the name given to the code that sets uniform standards for how a developer writes a program so it can communicate with other operating systems or applications.
A RESTful API is a type of application program interface that uses HTTP requests and is based on “representational state transfer” (REST) architectural style , which requires the system be cacheable, remove the need to edit code, offer a uniform interface and a provide a method of separating client and server information. Using HTTP requests, REST API can perform operations such as searching for information (GET), adding information (POST), editing information (PUT) and DELETE.
Benefits of Tapping Into a RESTful API
Businesses that use RESTful AIPs can take advantage of several benefits. For example, they can be used without expensive third-party tools. The documentation is easier to understand and returns readable results. REST API also allows many different data formats and is especially good for cloud-based applications due to its statelessness, which means no information is kept or shared between REST executions. Additionally, REST APIs’ stateless functionality allows calls to be easily redeployed at scale.
RESTful APIs are preferable to SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) API technology for many reasons. They’re:
Lightweight
Easy to maintain
Scalable and flexible
Efficient and fast