API Versioning with the Django Rest Framework

This article explores the challenges and debates surrounding REST API versioning, specifically focusing on managing API code to support different schema versions. It highlights the lack of consensus on the best method for specifying API versions, whether through URLs, headers, or other means, and the limited guidance on handling these versions within code. The author discusses an approach used by Stripe involving transformation pipelines that ensure core API logic operates with the current version, while compatibility layers handle version differences. The article further proposes a potential implementation using Django Rest Framework (DRF), leveraging Serializers to apply ordered transformations, ensuring backward compatibility. While this method isolates versioning concerns and simplifies core logic management, it acknowledges potential performance issues and challenges in handling complex breaking changes.