Rest APIs in Go - using net/http vs. a library like Gorilla

Question

I see that Go itself has a package net/http, which is adequate at providing everything you need to get your own REST APIs up and running. However, there are a variety of frameworks; the most popular maybe say gorilla.

Considering that one of the main things I need to do going forward is to build REST APIs that will access some back-end storage (databases, caches, etc.) to perform CRUD operation, is it good to go with Go's standard library itself, or should I consider using some frameworks?

Normally, people write a new library or framework which solves the problem present in the existing library. But a lot of the frameworks also tend to make things worse when actual demands are simple.

So I have few questions:

1. Is the basic library in go lang good enough to support basic to moderate functionality for REST?

2. If I do end up using the inbuilt library and tomorrow have to change it to use some framework (like a gorilla), how difficult/costly would that be?

3. Are frameworks really addressing the problems or just making simple problems complex?

I would be extremely grateful for someone to share his thoughts here (who has been through making this choice himself) while I research more of my own.

Answer 1

1. The net/http package is probably sufficient for most scenarios, but if you want to ease your development, you should use a third-party package, such as Gorilla. For example, net/http's ServeMux does a great job at routing incoming requests for fixed URL paths but for pretty paths which use variables, you will need to implement a custom multiplexer while using Gorilla, you are getting this for free.

   Another example is if you want to specify RESTful resources with proper HTTP methods, it is hard to work with the standard http.ServeMux, while with Gorilla's mux package, requests can be matched based on URL host, path, path prefix, schemes, header and query values, and HTTP methods.

2. One of the great benefits of Gorilla is that it is fully compatible with the net/http package and can be substituted in the future.

3. See 1.

I totally encourage you to use Gorilla's toolkit to develop REST services.

Answer 2

The built-in net/http package is sufficient to build a complete REST API. However, some of the libraries can make building an API slightly easier, particularly if the REST API is complex. Changing from the built-in facilities to any decent framework is relatively straightforward - they generally accept handlers of the http.Handler type.

In the end, though, this is an extremely situational choice. The best thing you can do is examine each available solution, contrast and compare, and build a proof of concept with the top options if you possibly can. First-hand experience will guide you best.