I think you mean HTTP+JSON. REST as a philosophy while applied mostly to HTTP isn't really tied to it. We personally decided to stick with HTTP (even though Th

I think you mean HTTP+JSON. REST as a philosophy while applied mostly to HTTP isn't really tied to it. We personally decided to stick with HTTP (even though Thrift would be "superior") since tools are numerous and simple. It's hard to beat curl and a browser. We also found that services end up used in ways that are hard to predict, especially in bash-written tools and the like. Thrift is a barrier to entry. Additionally, you could do HTTP+Thrift. It's possible, it works, but you lose some of the overhead benefits of Thrift at that point (IMO). In my experience, fulfilling a Thrift request with a Thrift server has tighter latencies at much lower CPU usage for similar request loads.