Building Quiz APIs with Next.js: A Complete Guide

Introduction

Building a quiz API might seem straightforward, but creating one that's production-ready requires careful thought about authentication, rate limiting, data modeling, and developer experience.

In this guide, we'll walk through building a complete quiz API using Next.js 16 App Router, Prisma ORM, and TypeScript.

Setting Up the Project

First, create a new Next.js project with TypeScript and Tailwind CSS:

npx create-next-app@latest quiz-api --typescript --tailwind --app

Install the required dependencies:

npm install prisma @prisma/client zod

Data Modeling with Prisma

The core of any quiz API is the data model. We need to represent quizzes, questions, and answers:

1model Quiz {
2  id          String     @id @default(cuid())
3  title       String
4  description String?
5  category    String?
6  difficulty  Difficulty @default(EASY)
7  published   Boolean    @default(false)
8  questions   Question[]
9  createdAt   DateTime   @default(now())
10}
11
12model Question {
13  id          String       @id @default(cuid())
14  text        String
15  type        QuestionType @default(MULTIPLE_CHOICE)
16  difficulty  Difficulty   @default(EASY)
17  quizId      String
18  quiz        Quiz         @relation(fields: [quizId], references: [id])
19  answers     Answer[]
20}

API Route Structure

With Next.js App Router, we organize our API routes under /api/v1/:

• GET /api/v1/quizzes — List all published quizzes
• GET /api/v1/quizzes/:id — Get a specific quiz with questions
• GET /api/v1/questions — List questions with filtering

Authentication with API Keys

For public APIs, API key authentication is the standard approach. We generate keys with the nanoid package and store hashed versions in the database.

Rate Limiting

To protect the API from abuse, implement rate limiting using an in-memory store or Redis for distributed deployments.

Conclusion

Building a quiz API with Next.js gives you the best of both worlds: a modern React frontend and a powerful API backend in a single codebase. The App Router makes it easy to organize routes, and Prisma provides type-safe database access.

Check out the QuizAPI documentation for the complete API reference.