What Is the Difference Between the Fetch API and a REST API?

The Fetch API is a modern JavaScript API for making network requests (HTTP requests) in web browsers. It allows you to request resources such as images, scripts and other data, normally over the internet.

REST, on the other hand, is a set of principles guiding the creation of web APIs, established since the early 2000s. It stands for Representational State Transfer.

While the Fetch API is often used to interact with RESTful APIs, it's versatile and can also work with other API types such as GraphQL and gRPC. Think of Fetch as a way to programmatically interact with an API.

Consider Fetch as a bus and REST API as the bus stop where people get on the bus. Hope this analogy makes the difference clear.