RESTful Services website screenshot

RESTful Services

Representational State Transfer (REST) services are web services built using the REST architectural style, which uses stateless HTTP communication and standard HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, PATCH) to expose resources. RESTful services are the dominant pattern for modern public APIs and microservices. This index covers the REST architectural style, key design principles, tooling ecosystem, and notable frameworks for building REST services across all technology stacks.

RESTful Services publishes 5 APIs on the APIs.io network. Tagged areas include Architecture, HTTP, Microservices, REST, and Web Services.

The RESTful Services catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context and 1 Spectral governance ruleset.

RESTful Services’ developer surface includes documentation and 4 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub
31.7/100 thin ▬ flat Agent 3/100 human only Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-08-05 · rubric v0.9.1
AccessFreemium
5 APIs
ArchitectureHTTPMicroservicesRESTWeb Services

Kin Score

Kin Score Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-08-05 · rubric v0.9.1
Composite quality — 31.7/100 · thin
Contract Quality 3.2 / 25
Developer Ergonomics 3.0 / 20
Commercial Clarity 7.9 / 20
Operational Transparency 4.1 / 13
Governance 7.0 / 12
Discoverability 6.5 / 10
Agent readiness — 3/100 · human only
Machine-Readable Contract 0 / 18
Agentic Access Contract 0 / 10
MCP Server 0 / 12
Machine-Readable Auth 0 / 10
Idempotency 0 / 9
Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8
Request/Response Examples 0 / 7
Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7
Typed Event Surface 0 / 6
Agent Skills 0 / 5
Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4
Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3
A2A Agent Card 0 / 8
Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4
Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/restful-services: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Want it done for you? Prioritized profiling — $2,500 →

APIs 5

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

Standards.REST

A curated collection of standards, conventions, and best practices for building RESTful APIs, including HAL, JSON:API, Siren, Collection+JSON, and HATEOAS patterns.

Zalando RESTful API and Event Guidelines

Zalando's comprehensive and widely-adopted RESTful API design guidelines, covering naming conventions, HTTP methods, versioning, error handling, pagination, and hypermedia.

Microsoft Azure REST API Guidelines

Microsoft's official REST API design guidelines for Azure services, covering resource naming, versioning, HTTP semantics, long-running operations, and error responses.

AWS API Gateway

Amazon Web Services fully managed service for creating, publishing, maintaining, monitoring, and securing REST APIs at any scale.

Google Apigee API Management

Google Cloud's API management platform for building, managing, and securing RESTful APIs. Provides analytics, developer portal, rate limiting, and policy management.

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Restful Services Plans Pricing

3 plans

PLANS

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Restful Services Rate Limits

5 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

Restful Services Finops

FINOPS

Semantic Vocabularies 1

JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.

Restful Services Context

13 classes · 9 properties

JSON-LD

Spectral Rules 1

Spectral governance rulesets for linting and validating these APIs.

RESTful Services API Rules

5 rules · 3 warnings 2 info

SPECTRAL

JSON Schema 2

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

REST Error Response

6 properties

JSON SCHEMA

REST Resource

6 properties

JSON SCHEMA

JSON Structure 1

JSON Structure definitions describing this provider's data shapes.

Restful Services Resource Structure

0 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Security Posture 1

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Restful Services Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DMARC

SECURITY

Resources

Documentation 2

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Documentation
Documentation
 Reference
Reference

Access & Security 1

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity
DomainSecurity

Other 2

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Roy Fielding Dissertation
Roy Fielding Dissertation
 Standards
Standards

Source (apis.yml)

apis.yml Raw ↑ 
aid: restful-services
accessModel:
  pricing: freemium
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Freemium
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - plans
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/restful-services.png
name: RESTful Services
description: Representational State Transfer (REST) services are web services built using the REST architectural style, which
  uses stateless HTTP communication and standard HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, PATCH) to expose resources. RESTful
  services are the dominant pattern for modern public APIs and microservices. This index covers the REST architectural style,
  key design principles, tooling ecosystem, and notable frameworks for building REST services across all technology stacks.
type: Index
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/restful-services/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
tags:
- Architecture
- HTTP
- Microservices
- REST
- Web Services
created: '2025-01-01'
modified: '2026-05-02'
specificationVersion: '0.19'
apis:
- aid: restful-services:standards-rest
  name: Standards.REST
  description: A curated collection of standards, conventions, and best practices for building RESTful APIs, including HAL,
    JSON:API, Siren, Collection+JSON, and HATEOAS patterns.
  humanURL: https://standards.rest/
  tags:
  - Best Practices
  - Standards
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://standards.rest/
- aid: restful-services:zalando-rest-guidelines
  name: Zalando RESTful API and Event Guidelines
  description: Zalando's comprehensive and widely-adopted RESTful API design guidelines, covering naming conventions, HTTP
    methods, versioning, error handling, pagination, and hypermedia.
  humanURL: https://opensource.zalando.com/restful-api-guidelines/
  tags:
  - Best Practices
  - Guidelines
  - Standards
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://opensource.zalando.com/restful-api-guidelines/
- aid: restful-services:azure-rest-guidelines
  name: Microsoft Azure REST API Guidelines
  description: Microsoft's official REST API design guidelines for Azure services, covering resource naming, versioning, HTTP
    semantics, long-running operations, and error responses.
  humanURL: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/best-practices/api-design
  tags:
  - Best Practices
  - Guidelines
  - Microsoft
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/best-practices/api-design
- aid: restful-services:aws-api-gateway
  name: AWS API Gateway
  description: Amazon Web Services fully managed service for creating, publishing, maintaining, monitoring, and securing REST
    APIs at any scale.
  humanURL: https://aws.amazon.com/api-gateway/
  tags:
  - AWS
  - Cloud
  - Managed Service
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/apigateway/latest/developerguide/
  - type: Website
    url: https://aws.amazon.com/api-gateway/
- aid: restful-services:google-apigee
  name: Google Apigee API Management
  description: Google Cloud's API management platform for building, managing, and securing RESTful APIs. Provides analytics,
    developer portal, rate limiting, and policy management.
  humanURL: https://cloud.google.com/apigee
  tags:
  - API Management
  - Cloud
  - Google
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://cloud.google.com/apigee/docs
  - type: Website
    url: https://cloud.google.com/apigee
common:
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/restful-services-domain-security.yml
- type: Documentation
  url: https://restfulapi.net/
- type: Reference
  url: https://www.w3.org/2001/sw/wiki/REST
- type: Roy Fielding Dissertation
  url: https://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/rest_arch_style.htm
- type: Standards
  url: https://standards.rest/
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com