REST vs GraphQL
REST and GraphQL are not competitors — they are tools suited to different problems. REST excels for simple CRUD resources, public APIs where HTTP caching matters, and teams that want predictable, cacheable endpoints. GraphQL shines for complex, interconnected data graphs, mobile clients that need to minimize over-fetching, and rapid UI iteration without coordinating backend changes.
RESTful Design Conventions
Good REST APIs use nouns for resources (/users, /orders), HTTP verbs for actions (GET, POST, PATCH, DELETE), and consistent status codes. Version your API from day one (/v1/) — changing a public API without versioning is a breaking change that hurts your consumers. Use plural nouns, filter with query params, and never expose internal database IDs if you can use UUIDs or slugs instead.
Authentication Patterns
JWT access tokens (short-lived, 15 minutes) paired with refresh tokens (long-lived, stored in httpOnly cookies) is the modern standard. Never store JWTs in localStorage — XSS can steal them. API keys for machine-to-machine communication should be hashed in the database and displayed to the user only once at creation.
Rate Limiting and Resilience
Rate limiting protects your API from abuse and accidental denial-of-service. Use a sliding window or token bucket algorithm, return 429 Too Many Requests with a Retry-After header, and apply different limits per user tier. Add timeouts to outbound requests, implement circuit breakers for downstream dependencies, and always return meaningful error bodies — not just a status code.
Conclusion
Great API design is invisible — consumers can do what they need without reading documentation, errors are self-explanatory, and the surface area is small enough to hold in your head. Consistency and predictability beat cleverness every time.