Scala framework for a Rest API Server?

Question

Hi,

We are thinking on moving our Rest API Server (it is inside the web service, on Symfony PHP) to Scala for several reasons: speed, no overhead, less cpu, less code, scalability, etc. I did't know Scala until several days ago but I've been enjoying what I've been learning these days with the Scala book and all the blog posts and questions (it's not so ugly!)

I have the following options:

• build the Rest API Server from scratch
• use a tiny Scala web framework like Scalatra
• use lift

Some things that I will have to use: HTTP requests, JSON output, MySQL (data), OAuth, Memcache (cache), Logs, File uploads, Stats (maybe Redis).

What would you recommend? Thanks!

Answer 1

I'm going to recommend Unfiltered. It's an idiomatic Web framework that does things "the Scala way" and is very beautiful.

Answer 2

I would add two more options: akka with built-in JAX-RS support, and simply using JAX-RS directly (probably the Jersey implementation). While arguably less "Scala-y" than others (relying upon annotations to bind parameters and paths), JAX-RS is a joy to use, cleanly solving all of the problems of web service coding with minimal footprint. I've not used it via akka, I would anticipate it being excellent there, getting impressive scalability via it's continuation-based implementation.

Answer 3

Take a look at the AKKA REST module.

Examples:

Scala API example with Actors

Pinky REST/MVC framework

Also Lift makes it simple to provide REST services.

Answer 4

All good answers so far. One point in Lift's favor is its RestHelper, which can make it quite easy to write short, elegant API methods. In addition, all the other things you want to do should be quite straight-forward to implement in Lift. That being said, Memcache might be not be necessary.