Choosing between HTTP APIs and REST APIs
HTTP APIs are designed for low-latency, cost-effective integrations with AWS services, including AWS Lambda, and HTTP endpoints. HTTP APIs support OIDC and OAuth 2.0 authorization, and come with built-in support for CORS and automatic deployments. Previous-generation REST APIs currently offer more features.
The following tables summarize core features that are available in HTTP APIs and REST APIs.
| Authorizers | HTTP API | REST API |
|---|---|---|
|
AWS Lambda |
✓ |
✓ |
|
IAM |
✓ |
✓ |
|
Amazon Cognito |
✓ * |
✓ |
|
Native OpenID Connect / OAuth 2.0 |
✓ |
* You can use Amazon Cognito as a JWT issuer.
| Integration | HTTP API | REST API |
|---|---|---|
|
Public HTTP endpoints |
✓ |
✓ |
|
Lambda |
✓ |
✓ |
|
AWS services |
✓ |
✓ |
|
Private integrations with Application Load Balancers |
✓ |
|
|
Private integrations with Network Load Balancers |
✓ |
✓ |
|
Private integrations with AWS Cloud Map |
✓ |
|
|
Mock |
✓ |
| API management | HTTP API | REST API |
|---|---|---|
|
Usage plans |
✓ |
|
|
API keys |
✓ |
|
|
Custom domain names |
✓ * |
✓ |
* HTTP APIs don't support TLS 1.0.
| Development | HTTP API | REST API |
|---|---|---|
|
API caching |
✓ |
|
|
Request parameter transformation |
✓ |
✓ |
|
Request body transformation |
✓ |
|
|
Request / response validation |
✓ |
|
|
Test invocation |
✓ |
|
|
CORS configuration |
✓ |
✓ * |
|
Automatic deployments |
✓ |
|
|
Default stage |
✓ |
|
|
Default route |
✓ |
|
|
✓ |
||
|
✓ |
* You can combine different features of REST APIs to support CORS. To learn more, see Enabling CORS for a REST API resource.
| Security | HTTP API | REST API |
|---|---|---|
|
Mutual TLS authentication |
✓ |
✓ |
|
✓ |
||
|
AWS WAF |
✓ |
|
|
Resource policies |
✓ |
| API type | HTTP API | REST API |
|---|---|---|
|
Regional |
✓ |
✓ |
|
Edge-optimized |
✓ |
|
|
Private |
✓ |
| Monitoring | HTTP API | REST API |
|---|---|---|
|
Access logs to Amazon CloudWatch Logs |
✓ |
✓ |
|
Access logs to Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose |
✓ |
|
|
Execution logs |
✓ |
|
|
Amazon CloudWatch metrics |
✓ |
✓ |
|
AWS X-Ray |
✓ |
