I guess it's also a matter of taste. In any case, my taste is this: RESTful APIs usually represent CRUD operations, each of these letter can be beautifully map

I guess it's also a matter of taste. In any case, my taste is this: RESTful APIs usually represent CRUD operations, each of these letter can be beautifully mapped to request types: - CREATE -> POST - READ -> GET - UPDATE -> PUT - DELETE -> DELETE Second point: {error: false, value: actual_data} If we have an error variable, what is the HTTP error code then good for? Normal Web Servers use the HTTP error codes for a reason. Besides using standard webframework a json containing only "actual_data" means less code, less errors and so forth... Third point: URLs should represent the hierarchy: GET /users/43/bookmarks/32442?... is much more beautiful and straight-forward to work with than /api_handler.exe?user_id=43&bookmark_id=32442&operation=get... Regarding authentication: use a secret API key, that's simple and secure. Everybody does that, from small services to multi million user services like facebook. As a hint: read the dissertation of Roy Fielding who "invented" REST. In my opinion REST means to exploit HTTP as far as possible instead of using any custom conventions.