Server Compenents, Route Handlers or API routes

[mtbspace]

I've completed the tutorial and am now building an app. The tutorial made no mention of API routes as far as I can recall, and the documentation on API routes states 'If you are using the App Router, you can use Server Components or Route Handlers instead of API Routes.'
Should I be taking that as a recommendation, and, rather than using API routes, should I be using Server Components and/or Route Handlers as being the best pattern to work with NextJS in new projects?

[icyJoseph]

API routes are a Pages Router thing. In App Router, to make an endpoint, that's not specialized like a Server Action/Function, you have to use Route Handlers, which have a significantly different API than the Page's Router API Routes.

[mtbspace]

Ah yes, I'd failed to realise the significance of these words in the tutorial's introduction:

Next.js has two different routers: the App Router and the Pages Router. The App Router is a newer router that allows you to use React's latest features...

I need to be careful when searching for solutions to ensure they're working with the App Router.

Thank you