
And by implementing the pattern, we will have a stable and easily understandable foundation enabling us to evolve the code rapidly and maintain it afterward. Using these HTTP operations and a resource name as an address, we can build a Node.js REST API by creating an endpoint for each operation.


So in this tutorial, our basic but secure REST API back end will focus on components common among JavaScript developers: The de facto standard they use for this is called representational state transfer (REST).Īnd why build a Node.js REST API, in particular? While a multitude of platforms and programming languages can be used for the task-like ASP.NET Core, Laravel (PHP), or Bottle (Python)-JavaScript remains the most popular language among professional developers. These enable other developers to easily integrate features like social media logins, credit card payments, and behavior tracking. It’s quite common nowadays for online services to have public-facing APIs. They enable software to communicate with other pieces of software-internal or external-consistently, which is a key ingredient in scalability, not to mention reusability.

It has been modified to include recent sources and to align with our current editorial standards.Īpplication programming interfaces (APIs) are everywhere. Editor’s note: This article was updated on Decemby our editorial team.
