Difference between route and endpoint?

Question

Question

I have a probably rather simple question, but I'm unable to find an answer with nice explanations:

What is the difference (if any) between a route and an endpoint in the context of a RESTful API developed within a Node.js / Express application (but these concepts may be broader?!)?
(Does it relate to URLs in some way?)

Example

For example, in this article: https://medium.com/@purposenigeria/build-a-restful-api-with-node-js-and-express-js-d7e59c7a3dfb we can read:

We imported express which we installed at the beginning of the course, app.get makes a get request to the server with the route/endpoint provided as the first parameter, the endpoint is meant to return all the todos in the database.

These concepts are used interchangeably, which makes me confused.
(please note that I'm a 100% beginner with REST API, nodejs and express but I try to do my best to learn).

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Edit

The two first answers chronologically speaking make me even more confused as they are perfectly antagonistic.

Answer 1

3 different concepts here:

• Resource: {id: 42, type: employee, company: 5}
• Route: localhost:8080/employees/42
• Endpoint: GET localhost:8080/employees/42

You can have different endpoints for the same route, such as DELETE localhost:8080/employees/42. So endpoints are basically actions.

Also you can access the same resource by different routes such as localhost:8080/companies/5/employees/42. So a route is a way to locate a resource.

• Read more: Endpoint vs. route

• Read more: Endpoint vs. resource

Answer 2

Route

• URI path used to access the available endpoints.
• example: http://www.mywebsite.com/

Endpoint

• performs a specific action.
• has one or more parameter(s).
• returns back data.
• example: GET http://www.mywebsite.com/Products

A Route is the URI, and the Endpoint is the action performed on the URI.

Answer 3

Routes and endpoints are associated concepts - you can't really have one without the other.

What is an endpoint?

Generally speaking, an "endpoint" is one end of a communication channel where one system interacts with another system. This term is also used similarly in networking.

For a typical web API, endpoints are URLs, and they are described in the API's documentation so programmers know how to use/consume them. For example, a particular web API may have this endpoint:

GET https://my-api.com/Library/Books

This would return a list of all books in the library.

What is a route?

A "route" is typically code that matches incoming request paths to resources. In other words, it defines the URL and what code will be executed. A route path might contain regular expressions, patterns, parameters, and involve validation. For example, consider this route path:

"{controller}/{action}/{id?}"

In ASP.NET, pattern matching is applied, so GET https://my-api.com/Library/Books/341 would call the Books public method on the Library class, passing a parameter of 341. Routing frameworks can be very flexible and versatile.

The simplest example of an endpoint is to put a file you want to be consumed (say data.json) inside the public_html folder of your web server. It can be reached by GET https://my-api.com/data.json. The routing is handled by the web server out of the box and no routing code is required.

Some good things to read next:

• Express.js - Routing
• Wordpress Developer Resources - Routes and Endpoints
• When to use "client-side routing" or "server-side routing"?