REST (Representational State Transfer) is an architectural style for designing networked applications. It defines a set of principles and constraints that enable the development of scalable and efficient web services. A REST API (Application Programming Interface) is an implementation of a web service that adheres to the principles of REST.
RESTful APIs are widely used for building web services and are commonly used in client-server communication over HTTP. They are platform-independent, language-agnostic, and can be consumed by various clients, including web browsers, mobile apps, or other servers.