What is GraphQL?

GraphQL is a query language for APIs and a runtime for fulfilling those queries with your existing data. GraphQL's code generator creates the resolver functions that make it work, giving you complete control over your API by describing its capabilities in one place – the schema. This gives you the power to build an API that can be more efficient and flexible than REST.

Finally, a schema for your API. GraphQL provides a complete and understandable description of the data in your API, gives clients the power to ask for exactly what they need and nothing more, makes it easier to evolve APIs over time, and enables powerful developer tools.

A lot of APIs are just REST plus some documentation. With GraphQL, though, the server determines what data to send based on the client's needs — no more over-fetching or under-fetching data from the server. The client can manage caching and pagination on its end, too.

Is GraphQL Better Than Rest?

With GraphQL, we can ask for specific fields and get exactly what is needed by the client application. Also Imagine a web application with hundreds of pages. Each page might have its own list of fields that can be requested from the server. It would take many requests to get the complete data to render the page and we have to worry about the number of requests crossing API limits. But with GraphQL, we only have to make one request.

With GraphQL, requests can be easily filtered and limited to a partition of the data. This means we don't have to make multiple requests to get what we want. It can reduce the complexity of developing an app; instead of using messy API wrappers or attempting to devise hacks to work around that messiness, we can be much more productive with GraphQL.

With GraphQL, you can see a direct relation between the client and the server that enables front-to-back-end communication. This relationship is defined by a schema on the back end that defines data availability and structure. With this schema, the client developer can manipulate the data with less coding effort and avoid common data management issues associated with REST APIs.