```yaml
product: AlterLab
title: "REST API — Web Scraping Glossary | AlterLab"
comparison_context: "AlterLab is an alternative to Firecrawl, ScrapingBee, and Bright Data."
source_url: https://alterlab.io/glossary/rest-api
```

general

# REST API

A web service that exposes data and actions through standard HTTP methods and resource-oriented URLs, returning structured JSON responses.

A REST (Representational State Transfer) API is a web service that follows a set of architectural constraints: it uses standard HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE) to perform operations on resources identified by URLs, is stateless (each request contains all information needed to complete it), and returns structured data — typically JSON.

REST APIs are the dominant integration pattern for web services because every HTTP client — every programming language, browser, and platform — can call them without additional libraries. The combination of standard methods and JSON responses makes REST APIs predictable, testable, and cacheable.

AlterLab's scraping service is a REST API: POST a JSON request with a URL and options, receive a JSON response with the extracted content, status, and metadata. Authentication uses API key headers rather than OAuth for simplicity. All endpoints are versioned (`/v1/`) to allow non-breaking evolution of the API surface.

### What is REST API?

A web service that exposes data and actions through standard HTTP methods and resource-oriented URLs, returning structured JSON responses.

### How does AlterLab handle REST API?

AlterLab's scraping service is a REST API: POST a JSON request with a URL and options, receive a JSON response with the extracted content, status, and metadata. Authentication uses API key headers rather than OAuth for simplicity. All endpoints are versioned (`/v1/`) to allow non-breaking evolution of the API surface.

## Examples

```
# Basic REST API call
curl -X POST https://api.alterlab.io/v1/scrape \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-API-Key: sk_live_..." \
  -d '{"url": "https://example.com"}'
```

## Related Terms

[Web ScrapingAutomated extraction of data from websites using software tools that parse HTML and collect structured information at scale.](https://alterlab.io/glossary/web-scraping)[WebhookAn HTTP callback that delivers data to a specified URL when an async scrape job completes.](https://alterlab.io/glossary/webhook)[Structured Data ExtractionConverting free-form HTML into typed JSON records using explicit schemas, producing clean structured output instead of raw markup.](https://alterlab.io/glossary/structured-data-extraction)

## Extract REST API data from any website

AlterLab returns clean, structured data from any public URL — no scraper infrastructure needed. Start free, no credit card required.

[View API docs](https://alterlab.io/docs/api/rest)

[Back to Glossary](https://alterlab.io/glossary)