From the course: Programming Foundations: APIs and Web Services

Unlock this course with a free trial

Join today to access over 24,700 courses taught by industry experts.

Exploring GraphQL benefits

Exploring GraphQL benefits

- Ordering food at a restaurant can be frustrating when you're stuck with a preset meal. Maybe you just want a burger with extra pickles, no onions, and a side of sweet potato fries, but instead, you're forced to take a combo meal with items you don't need. Traditional REST APIs work the same way. Clients request data from fixed endpoints and often receive more or less than what you actually need. GraphQL changes the game by allowing clients to request exactly the data they want, no more, no less. REST has been the standard for API communication for years, offering structured endpoints like users or products to retrieve data. However, its limitations start to show as applications become more complex. Clients often overfetch or underfetch data. A mobile app, for instance, might only need a user's name and email. A REST request, however, gets an entire profile, including unnecessary details like address and social security number. On the other hand, if a client needs both user details…

Contents