It's a tradeoff (isn't everything) but I don't think the cost is cleanliness/tidiness. Your client (could be a web app consuming the api from the server) acces

It's a tradeoff (isn't everything) but I don't think the cost is cleanliness/tidiness. Your client (could be a web app consuming the api from the server) accesses the api like anyone else. You've created an api that others can build on - and you know that, because you're doing it yourself. More to maintain. More cpu processing. Still a cleaner architecture though (compared to, say, having to maintain an external api for others to use while having a web app that talks directly to the db).