Serverless Developer Guide
Choose between REST and HTTP APIs
API Gateway oﬀers two types of RESTful API products: REST APIs and HTTP APIs .
• REST APIs support more features than HTTP APIs, but pricing is higher than HTTP APIs.
• HTTP APIs consist of a collection of routes that direct incoming API request to backend resources. 
Routes are a combination of an HTTP method and a resource path, such as “GET /users/
details/1234”. HTTP APIs also provide a $default route that is a catch-all for requests that 
don’t match other more speciﬁc routes.
Choosing between the type of API depends on your speciﬁc use case:
• Choose a REST API if you need advanced features, such as mock integration, request validation, 
a web application ﬁrewall, certiﬁcates for backend authentication, or a private API endpoint with 
per-client rate limiting and usage throttling,
• Choose an HTTP API if you need minimal features, lower price, and auto-deployment.
Related resource(s):
• Choosing between REST APIs and HTTP APIs - detailed comparison between REST and HTTP APIs
Non-proxy integrations and data transformations (REST API only)
Your API integration contains an integration request and integration response. You can have API 
Gateway directly pass the request and response between the frontend and backend, or you can 
manually set up an integration request and integration response.
• proxy integration – you let API Gateway automatically pass all data in the HTTP request/response 
between the client and backend, automatically, without modiﬁcation
• non-proxy integration – you set up a custom integration request and integration response, where 
you can alter the data that ﬂows between client and backend
Choosing between integration types depends on your use case:
• Proxy integrations directly send all information to a function for processing.
Advanced Topics 68