GraphQL vs REST API: A Comparative Study

GraphQL and REST are two prominent approaches for building APIs. REST has been around for a long time, offering a simple way to structure and interact with web services. GraphQL, developed by Facebook in 2012, is a more modern alternative that addresses some of the limitations of REST. This blog post provides a comparative analysis of GraphQL and REST APIs in tabular format, along with examples of input endpoints and their respective outputs.

Comparative Analysis

1. Data Fetching

Aspect	GraphQL	REST
Querying Data	Allows querying multiple resources in a single request	Requires multiple requests to different endpoints for related data
Example Query	{ user(id: "1") { name, email, posts { title } } }	GET /user/1 and then GET /user/1/posts
Example Output	{"data": {"user": {"name": "John", "email": "john@example.com", "posts": [{"title": "First Post"}]}}}	{"name": "John", "email": "john@example.com"} / [{"title": "First Post"}]

Read more »