GraphQL as API Gateway?!

GraphQL could replace API Gateways in near future. The single endpoint access to any back-end API inside your company it provides can replace entirely an API Gateway. And of course we are talking about GraphQL - the query language developed internally by Facebook, but now an open standard, allowing to design a single endpoint access that fetches data from several sources.

An HTTP API gateway is a single entry point for all the client-server communications. It offers security, usage metrics, and access control over APIs. But GraphQL could replace entirely an API Gateway.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a single endpoint to access any backend data no matter the source? The team at Schibsted Media Labs wondered that too. They challenged themselves to build a GraphQL server without any middleware and with the ability to access any data source throughout their company using GraphQL. And they did! WIth GraphQL Portal!

Why GraphQL Schema is way more than you think

That is because GrapghQL is built for schema-driven APIs, and it can even have a schema in place for your API (which may be hard to achieve with an API Gateway since they are not schema-driven). APIs generated or backed by GraphQL are truly universal, whereas in most cases it is just one backend that an API Gateway manages.

In a near future, we will not need to write anymore API Gateways to expose our APIs. None of the existing solutions will be satisfying enough because they are either too difficult to use or lack features like caching and authentication. GraphQL seems to be a promising proposition but remains a bit obscure and proprietary for many people. This is why you should start with GraphQL Portal!