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WordPress REST API guide

Everything you need to know about the REST API, from the people who created it.

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I created the WordPress REST API to allow WordPress to meet the standards demanded by modern web users: the REST API provides powerful capabilities to deliver innovative experiences.

Accessories, Face, Glasses

Ryan McCue
REST API founder & Director of Product, Altis

What is the WordPress REST API?

The WordPress REST API, created by Human Made’s Ryan McCue, facilitated a major evolution, exposing WordPress content and data as JSON via a standardised RESTful API. For the first time, data was unlocked, and an explosion in the number and complexity of WordPress integrations began.


Download the guide and dive into what the WordPress REST API is, why it’s RESTful, what makes it open and why the REST API allows for a more powerful experience in:

  • Using WordPress as part of a complex multi-service workflow
  • Separating frontend delivery from the CMS
  • Powering multiple frontends from the same content
Computer Hardware, Electronics, Hardware

Why did award-winning digital studio ustwo choose the WordPress REST API?

Creating a custom API for content delivery with a React frontend and WordPress backend sounds complex, but our experience with the REST API made it all possible.

We chose WordPress as we wanted to have an established open source CMS so that we can be confident that we’ll never be left without support or ability to change. To fulfil our design ambitions we decided to build our frontend as a single-page application, which was made possible with the WP-API.

Body Part, Face, Head

Daniel Demmel
Fullstack Web Developer, ustwo

At Human Made, we’ve guided many organisations through the journey of evaluating, deciding, engineering, and launching complex sites using headless, decoupled, and hybrid approaches, which the WordPress REST API makes possible.

Accessories, Face, Glasses

Ryan McCue

REST API founder & Director of Product, Altis

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