Recently I had discussion: Should the pagination start from page 1 or from page 0 ?

Pagination starting from page 1 - Book-like pagination

It’s similar to numbering a book pages. First page with content is page 1.

I tell you the book has 4 pages it mean the page 4 has last page with the content. So you naturally assume first page of the book is 1 and last page of book is 4

e.g. given I have 32 items with limit 10

page 1 - first set of data   1 - 10
page 2 - first set of data  11 - 20
page 3 - first set of data  21 - 30
page 4 - first set of data  31, 32

This way API can return total pages / what is the last page easily.

First page:

get /student/123/works?limit=10`
# ...or
get /student/123/works?limit=10&page=1`

{
  "student": {
    "name": "Tomi",
    "works": {
       "data": [
          { title: "work 1" },
          { title: "work 2" },
          { title: "work 3" },
          { title: "work 4" },
          { title: "work 5" },
          { title: "work 6" },
          { title: "work 7" },
          { title: "work 8" },
          { title: "work 9" },
          { title: "work 10" }
        ]
       "limit": 10,
       "current_page": 1,
       "first_page": 1,
       "last_page": 4
    }
 }
}

Last page:

get /student/123/works?limit=10&page=4

{
  "student": {
    "name": "Tomi",
    "works": {
       "data": [
          { title: "work 31" },
          { title: "work 32" },
        ]
       "limit": 10,
       "current_page": 4,
       "first_page": 1,
       "last_page": 4
    }
 }
}

Due to fact that last page is the same number as total number of pages it’s easy to calculate how many elements you may receive. If you know the last page is 4 and you are limiting results to 10 so you may end up with up to 40 elements because 10 * 4

Simmilar pagination numbering is based in other solution like Will paginate or kaminari where first page is 1

Pagination starting from page 0 - Array-like

So one other idea may to implement pagination so imitating how Array works. This means first element is page 0:

e.g. given I have 32 items with limit 10

page 0 - first set of data   1 - 10
page 1 - first set of data  11 - 20
page 2 - first set of data  21 - 30
page 3 - first set of data  31, 32

First page:

get /student/123/works?limit=10`
# ...or
get /student/123/works?limit=10&page=0`

{
  "student": {
    "name": "Tomi",
    "works": {
       "data": [
          { title: "work 1" },
          { title: "work 2" },
          { title: "work 3" },
          { title: "work 4" },
          { title: "work 5" },
          { title: "work 6" },
          { title: "work 7" },
          { title: "work 8" },
          { title: "work 9" },
          { title: "work 10" }
        ]
       "limit": 10,
       "current_page": 0,
       "first_page": 0,
       "last_page": 3
    }
 }
}

last page:

get /student/123/works?limit=10&page=3

{
  "student": {
    "name": "Tomi",
    "works": {
       "data": [
          { title: "work 31" },
          { title: "work 32" },
        ]
       "limit": 10,
       "current_page": 3,
       "first_page": 0,
       "last_page": 3
    }
 }
}

On technical side this works but at the same time you look at &page=3 you would expect it’s 3rd page but really it’s 4th page.

This mean last page is not the same as total number of pages.

This will start being problem once you consider Math: Because last page is 3 and we limit by 10 that means 10 * 3 = 30 elements ? No it’s up to 40 elements 10 * 4 (4 pages in total). This may be bit confusing for clients using your API

Conclusion

My point is: do yourself a favor, Start paginating from page 1 not page 0.