GraphQL is a query language that was developed by Facebook for their internal development. However, later it was made open source in 2015. It is gaining traction since then but has a lot to cover to be called as popular.
What are the main advantages of GraphQL?
GraphQL highly simplifies the fetching and manipulation of data, even when the operations tend to be complex. In “fetch” type of query, it provides exact data as requested by the client – no more no less. This makes the communication highly efficient. The important advantage is that the response format is specified by the client and is not decided by the server. Also, the structure of the data is not hardcoded as in REST APIs.
GraphQL makes the complex request very simple to implement as compared to REST APIs. e.g. additional filters and options both are pushed into query string parameters when using REST APIs. And that makes the request unreadable and difficult to understand which one is a filter and which one is an option. whereas GraphQL allows forming queries in a nested format, making it readable as well as easy to process.
GraphQL Server implementation is available in several languages including Javascript, Python, PHP, Ruby etc. Readymade server implementation from Facebook is also available, which uses Node.js.
Types of GraphQL operations
As can be guessed, it supports two types of operations:
- Fetch data
- Manipulate data (Create, Update, Delete)
Typically, you use GET request to fetch the data and POST request to manipulate the data. Using GET allows the responses to be cached at various levels and adds to the efficiency of the overall architecture.
Both REST and GraphQL support evolution of APIs i.e. support for additional fields and deprecation of unused fields, without impacting any of the endpoints.
You can read more about REST and GraphQL here and here. But essentially, both have their own advantages and in a microservices architecture, both could live together happily!!
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