In the context of Apicurio, a registry is a runtime system (server) that stores a specific set of artifacts (files). At its core, a registry provides the ability to add, update, and remove the artifacts from the store, typically via a remote API of some kind (often a REST API).
The key use case for the Apicurio community, an API registry is a system that allows users to register their API designs (e.g., OpenAPI or AsyncAPI files) so that potential API consumers can do the following:
In the messaging and event streaming world, data that is published to topics and queues often must be serialized or validated using a schema (e.g., Apache Avro, JSON Schema, or Google Protocol Buffers). Schemas can be packaged in each application, but it is often a better architectural pattern to instead register schemas in an external system and then reference them from each application. A schema registry provides the following benefits: