You can build REST APIs in Flask in multiple styles.

Plain Flask (recommended for learning)

Advantages:

• fewer dependencies
• you learn the fundamentals
• easy to debug

A plain Flask API is just:

• routes + JSON responses

Flask-RESTful

Flask-RESTful provides a resource class style:

• ResourceResource classes
• automatic parsing helpers

Pros:

• slightly more structured for large APIs

Cons:

• another abstraction layer
• not necessary for most beginner/intermediate projects

Practical recommendation

Use plain Flask until:

• you feel your API structure is repeating too much

At that point you can evaluate:

• Flask-RESTful
• Flask-Smorest (OpenAPI)
• or even moving to FastAPI for API-first services

For this tutorial track, we stick to plain Flask patterns so the concepts are clear.