What is a GraphQL client?
A GraphQL client can help construct the entire query with just the GraphQL document as input and add the relevant headers and context information. So instead of you writing the fetch API call every time, the client will handle it for you giving the response data and error after parsing. You should consider using GraphQL if you intend your API to be a NoSQL database. In contrast, consider using SQL if you use a query language to manage your relational database.Welcome to GraphQL GraphQL defines a standard grammar for a query language to read/write data. It kind of looks like a neater JSON with just the keys and allows you to pass arbitrary parameters in the query.Most of the security concerns associated with GraphQL are typical for any API or service. A few examples: SQL injections, Denial of Service (DoS) attacks, or someone abusing flawed authentication. But there are also some attacks specific to GraphQL. For instance, batching attacks.Alternatives to Consider While GraphQL offers a powerful approach, REST APIs remain a solid choice for many applications. They provide a well-defined structure for hierarchical data, can be easier to implement and cache, and excel at CRUD operations.
Is GraphQL free to use?
Free. For students or hobbyists learning the latest GraphQL tools. Forever Free. GraphQL is a million-times better than writing your own query language in JSON especially if you care about your colleagues and the longevity of your project. In fact, consuming GraphQL is far better than consuming REST because of the type-safety tooling that’s built into the GraphQL server and the client-side tooling.For simple CRUD operations, GraphQL can feel like overkill compared to REST. Why it matters: More setup: schema, types, resolvers, validation. Harder for small teams or MVPs that just need basic endpoints.One of the significant drawbacks to using GraphQL is that it is more difficult to specify the API rate limit than REST. This creates the risk of the cost of queries being unexpectedly large, leading to computation, resource, and infrastructure overload.In 2025, GraphQL remains a strong choice for: Applications requiring dynamic data fetching, such as dashboards or content-driven platforms. Mobile and frontend-heavy applications where minimizing data transfer is critical. Projects that need to unify data from multiple sources or microservices.The GraphQL specification doesn’t require particular client-server protocols when sending API requests and responses, but HTTP is the most common choice because of its ubiquity. On this page, we’ll review some key guidelines to follow when setting up a GraphQL server to operate over HTTP.
Why avoid GraphQL?
Malicious query construction Such queries don’t require resources by the attacker, like a conventional DOS attack would – the idea is the attacker can send a single query that causes a lot of work for the GraphQL server and its upstreams to then resolve. One solution for this is persisted queries. A GraphQL server can process a client query using data from separate sources and present the results in a unified graph. The language is not tied to any specific database or storage engine. There are several open-source runtime engines for GraphQL. Implementations in Java, JavaScript, Ruby, Scala, others.Learn how GraphQL resolvers are used to connect to data sources like Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Aurora, and AWS Lambda. Explore differences in building with a self-managed GraphQL server vs.Fetching: GraphQL solves the perennial issues of over- and under-fetching by simply defining the data you need.Analysis. REST is Faster, the REST endpoint had nearly half the latency and could handle ~70% more requests per second compared to GraphQL. GraphQL Overhead, even with a simple { hello } query, GraphQL introduces more complexity (query parsing, validation, and resolver execution).
Do I need to install GraphQL?
In conclusion, GraphQL is a powerful tool for building efficient APIs that allow clients to request only the data they need. Setting up a GraphQL server involves installing the necessary dependencies and configuring the server to handle GraphQL queries. Is GraphQL a database language like SQL? No, but this is a common misconception. GraphQL is a specification typically used for remote client-server communications. Unlike SQL, GraphQL is agnostic to the data source(s) used to retrieve data and persist changes.GraphQL can also act as a middle layer on top of your current systems, giving you a unified way to talk to them. This is handy for adding new features without messing with your old systems.GraphQL was first used internally by Facebook, then publicly released and open sourced in 2015. Following the trajectory of many other open source projects, in 2019 the GraphQL project moved to its own GraphQL Foundation, hosted by the Linux Foundation. GraphQL was designed as an alternative to the REST architecture.Since its inception in 2015, GraphQL has soared in popularity. According to the State of JavaScript 2020 report, it was adopted by 47% of developers in 2020. This includes developers from large companies such as Starbucks, Paypal, and even Facebook.Membership in the GraphQL Specification is free, and is required for all who participate in the development process.
Why did we stop using GraphQL?
GraphQL discourages breaking changes and provides no tools to deal with them. This adds needless complexity for those who control all their clients, who will have to find workarounds. Is GraphQL frontend or backend? GraphQL is neither the frontend or backend but rather the language spoken between the two to exchange information.Building a good GraphQL backend is much, much harder than building a good REST API . It’s hard to optimize when you don’t know how the data is going to be accessed or what people will need to be fast.Facebook experiences these problems with REST and hence built the GraphQL. GraphQL is a declarative way of specifying the data requirements on the client-side. It can be operated on a single end-point. It is more structured than REST.Is GraphQL frontend or backend? Both. GraphQL specifies how you can exchange information between client and server.
Is GraphQL better than REST API?
REST is good for simple data sources where resources are well defined. GraphQL is good for large, complex, and interrelated data sources. REST has multiple endpoints in the form of URLs to define resources. GraphQL has a single URL endpoint. It is great that Apollo makes these available to you, but they’re features you can add in later, even if you don’t start off using Apollo at all. A GraphQL schema is pretty standard, and entirely portable from the standard tools to Apollo (but not always back, if you start using Apollo’s own extensions.GraphQL allows developers to easily define and evolve APIs to match changing requirements. Clients can precisely specify the data they need using the query language, allowing for a more flexible and efficient data retrieval process. The server typically defines fixed endpoints that return predefined data structures.GraphQL offers high flexibility, allowing for customized queries tailored to the client’s requirements. SQL follows a more structured approach, with predefined schemas and rigid query formats.In addition to reading and writing data using stateless query and mutation operations, the GraphQL specification also describes how to receive real-time updates via long-lived requests. On this page, we’ll explore how clients can subscribe to details of events on a GraphQL server using subscription operations.