graphQL 4

Chapter 1: Introduction to GraphQL

GraphQL is a query language for APIs, developed and open-sourced by Facebook. It serves as an alternative to REST, but way better in terms of its power, efficiency, and flexibility.

Due to an increase in the usage of mobile devices and a sloppy network, a need for an efficient data loading arises. The declarative data fetching feature of GraphQL increases the efficiency of data loading because it only responds with the exact amount of information requested by a client.

Variety of front-end frameworks (i.e React, Ember, Angular e.t.c), makes it difficult to build an API that satisfies the requirement of all the frameworks. GraphQL solves the problem by exposing a single endpoint responding to queries instead of multiple endpoints returning a fixed data structures.

The breaking features of GraphQL makes it possible for a fast and continuous deployment; because it provides a possibility of building features on-the-fly.

NOTE: GraphQL is not a database, but just a query language for APIs. Its database agnostic, and can be used in any context where an API is used.