API Versioning Necessary Evil or Avoidable Complexity

API versioning is one of those topics that sparks endless debate among developers. Is it a safeguard for future-proofing your services, or a sign that your design isn’t as stable as it should be? After attending Spring I/O 2025 and hearing insights from industry experts like Victor Rentea and Rossen Stoyanchev, I found myself questioning the very premise of versioning. In this post, I explore the real-world challenges of API evolution—from internal team coordination to public API stability—and ask the hard question: are we versioning because we must, or because we assume we should?