What are the advantages and disadvantages of the REST architectural style?

Advantages of REST:

• Simplicity and standardization — uses standard HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE), which facilitates understanding and integration.
• Scalability — REST services are easily scalable due to stateless requests.
• Cacheability — HTTP supports caching, which improves performance.
• Flexibility — different data formats can be used (JSON, XML, etc.).
• Separation of client and server — allows developing the client and server independently.

Disadvantages of REST:

• Lack of standardized contract — no strict schema, which can lead to discrepancies.
• HTTP limitations — some operations are difficult to express through standard methods.
• Statelessness — requires transmitting all necessary information in each request, which can increase load.
• Lack of transaction support — difficult to implement complex operations requiring atomicity.

REST is well-suited for simple and medium-complexity APIs where scalability and ease of interaction are important.