Building REST APIs in Node.js is fundamental for creating backend services that power modern web and mobile applications with standardized HTTP operations. With over 25 years of backend development experience and as the creator of CoreUI, I’ve built countless REST APIs for enterprise applications and open-source projects. The most effective approach is using Express.js with proper HTTP methods, status codes, and JSON responses following REST conventions. This provides a scalable, maintainable API architecture that integrates seamlessly with any frontend framework.