I'm looking for any bit of advice on what it will take to create a REST API for a company that is looking to release web,mobile applications based on the API?<p>What tools would you use for development, deployment? Am I better off using a SaaS service that does this like apiary.io? Ideally, we want to own the whole REST api stack, what would be some great tools?<p>In terms of deployment, is EC2 generally the way to go?<p>In general, is creating a REST API hard thing compared to building an web app? There's documentation that must go with it as well.<p>How do I pitch this to my employer, that instead of building separate applications tied to their own databases, we create a central API that the client facing applications (Android, iOS, single page app) can consume. How can I estimate how much this will cost to make and explain that API first approach would offer more value? How do I explain that this in the long run is the ideal place to be without overloading them with technical jargon like "decoupling services and consumers" etc.