What types of APIs can I create with AWS API Gateway?

AWS API Gateway supports three types of APIs: REST APIs (with full API management features), HTTP APIs (simpler, lower-latency REST APIs with lower cost), and WebSocket APIs (for real-time two-way communication). REST APIs offer the most features; HTTP APIs are faster and cheaper for simple proxy use cases.

How does AWS API Gateway integrate with Lambda?

API Gateway integrates with Lambda through proxy integration (passing the full request to Lambda) or custom integration (transforming requests/responses). Create a REST API, define resources and methods, set Lambda as the integration target, and optionally configure request/response mapping templates for data transformation.

How much does AWS API Gateway cost?

REST API pricing: $3.50 per million API calls plus $0.09/GB data transfer out. HTTP API pricing: $1.00 per million calls for the first 300 million. WebSocket APIs: $1.00 per million messages plus $0.25 per million connection minutes. The first million REST or HTTP API calls per month are free for 12 months.

What Is AWS API Gateway? How It Works, Types & Key Benefits

Q: What is AWS API Gateway?

AWS API Gateway is a fully managed service that acts as the front door for applications to access data, business logic, or functionality from backend services like Lambda, EC2, or any web application. It handles API creation, publishing, maintenance, monitoring, and security at scale.

May 13, 2020 / Nirav Shah

Amazon API Gateway is a fully managed service that makes it easy for developers to create, publish, maintain, monitor, and secure APIs at any scale. APIs act as the “front door” for applications to access data, business logic, or functionality from your backend services. Using API Gateway, you can create RESTful APIs and WebSocket APIs that enable real-time two-way communication applications. API Gateway supports containerized and serverless workloads, as well as web applications.
API Gateway handles all the tasks involved in accepting and processing up to hundreds of thousands of concurrent API calls, including traffic management, CORS support, authorization and access control, throttling, monitoring, and API version management. API Gateway has no minimum fees or startup costs. You pay for the API calls you receive and the amount of data transferred out and, with the API Gateway tiered pricing model, you can reduce your cost as your API usage scales.

What Are the Types of APIs in AWS API Gateway?

RESTful APIs
- Build RESTful APIs optimized for serverless workloads and HTTP backends using HTTP APIs. HTTP APIs are the best choice for building APIs that only require API proxy functionality. If your APIs require API proxy functionality and API management features in a single solution, API Gateway also offers REST APIs.
WEBSOCKET APIs
- Build real-time two-way communication applications, such as chat apps and streaming dashboards, with WebSocket APIs. API Gateway maintains a persistent connection to handle message transfer between your backend service and your clients.

How Does AWS API Gateway Work? Architecture Explained

AWS API Gateway front door applications overview

Key Benefits of Using AWS API Gateway for Your Applications

Efficient API development
- Run multiple versions of the same API simultaneously with API Gateway, allowing you to quickly iterate, test, and release new versions. You pay for calls made to your APIs and data transfer out and there are no minimum fees or upfront commitments.
Performance at any scale
- Provide end users with the lowest possible latency for API requests and responses by taking advantage of our global network of edge locations using Amazon CloudFront. Throttle traffic and authorize API calls to ensure that backend operations withstand traffic spikes and backend systems are not unnecessarily called.
Cost savings at scale
- API Gateway provides a tiered pricing model for API requests. With an API Requests price as low as $0.90 per million requests at the highest tier, you can decrease your costs as your API usage increases per region across your AWS accounts.
Easy monitoring
- Monitor performance metrics and information on API calls, data latency, and error rates from the API Gateway dashboard, which allows you to visually monitor calls to your services using Amazon CloudWatch.
Flexible security controls
- Authorize access to your APIs with AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) and Amazon Cognito. If you use OAuth tokens, API Gateway offers native OIDC and OAuth2 support. To support custom authorization requirements, you can execute a Lambda authorizer from AWS Lambda.
RESTful API options
- Create RESTful APIs using HTTP APIs or REST APIs. HTTP APIs are the best way to build APIs for a majority of use cases—they’re up to 71% cheaper than REST APIs. If your use case requires API proxy functionality and management features in a single solution, you can use REST APIs.

HTTP Method	CRUD	Entire Collection (e.g. /users)	Specific Item (e.g. /users/123)
Post	Create	201 (Created), ‘Location’ header with link to /users/{id} containing new ID.	Avoid using POST on single resource
Get	Read	200 (OK), list of users. Use pagination, sorting and filtering to navigate big lists.	200 (OK), single user. 404 (Not Found), if ID not found or invalid.
Put	Update/Replace	405 (Method not allowed), unless you want to update every resource in the entire collection of resource.	200 (OK) or 204 (No Content). Use 404 (Not Found), if ID not found or invalid.
Patch	Partial Update/Modify	405 (Method not allowed), unless you want to modify the collection itself.	200 (OK) or 204 (No Content). Use 404 (Not Found), if ID not found or invalid.
Delete	Delete	405 (Method not allowed), unless you want to delete the whole collection — use with caution.	200 (OK). 404 (Not Found), if ID not found or invalid.

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Nirav Shah

Nirav Shah is the Director of Eternal Web Pvt Ltd, an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner and certified Odoo Partner based in the UK. With over a decade of experience in cloud computing, digital transformation, and ERP implementation, Nirav helps enterprises adopt the right technology to solve complex business challenges. He specialises in AWS infrastructure, Odoo ERP, and web development solutions for businesses across the UK and beyond.