This month we officially launched support for GraphQL APIs on the RapidAPI Marketplace! This is a big step forward to advance our mission of creating one place to find, connect to, and manage all of your APIs — regardless of type.
We wanted to quickly address how you can access them on the RapidAPI Marketplace, what GraphQL APIs are available, and other FAQs about GraphQL.
What is GraphQL?
GraphQL is an open-source query language used to deliver data to mobile and web applications. Unlike most traditional REST APIs, GraphQL APIs only have a single endpoint to retrieve all the required data for your app.
Here’s a short video with more information on what GraphQL is, plus the differences between REST and GraphQL.
Why Would I Use a GraphQL API Instead of a REST API?
REST APIs and GraphQL APIs are both powerful tools for developers. They can both fetch data for applications, but they use different methodologies to retrieve the data. Two of the major differentiating factors are:
- GraphQL allows you to request data from multiple resources in a single request. In comparison, REST requires making multiple requests to fetch each type of resource.
- GraphQL gives you more control over exactly what information your application receives in the response of the API. With REST, you have less control over exactly what you receive, which can lead to over fetching in certain situations.
Again, REST APIs and GraphQL APIs accomplish similar tasks using different methods. It is important to choose which one is the better fit for your specific use case. Check out this comparison chart for more details:
| GraphQL | REST | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ease of Use | Allows aggregation of data from multiple sources into one convenient API | Highly flexible and can handle multiple types of calls and return different data formats, since data is not tied to resources or methods | ||
| Performance | Recommend using when the number of queries needs to be reduced to avoid over-fetching or under-fetching of data | Recommend using if your API needs to be designed for higher loads and processes | ||
| Development Efficiencies | A good solution if your front and backend developers are developing the API in parallel | REST APIs enable the development of independent microservices that are accessible by multiple applications | ||
| Ease of Onboarding | Recommend when you want to simplify onboarding as you don't have to be an expert with web service architecture | Applications built with REST APIs can be easily scaled and evolved, due to the separation between client and server |
At RapidAPI, we recently implemented GraphQL in our own internal architecture. You can learn more about our decision-making process and what our structure looks like here.
What GraphQL APIs are Available on RapidAPI?
Our first wave of GraphQL based APIs includes GitHub, Yelp, Huddlio and more!
“As a part of the rapidly-expanding GraphQL ecosystem, the Huddlio team was thrilled to hear that RapidAPI was adding first-class support for GraphQL APIs. RapidAPI’s new native GraphQL experience is a game-changer – developers can now learn about, test, and integrate their applications with the Huddlio API with ease and confidence.”
Moving forward, we hope to add more GraphQL APIs. If you are interested in becoming a GraphQL API Provider on our Marketplace — and making your API available to over 1 million developers — learn how you can add your API here.
How Can I Use GraphQL APIs on the RapidAPI Marketplace?
With the addition of GraphQL support, you can now choose between native GraphQL APIs and REST APIs on the RapidAPI Marketplace. Start by searching the RapidAPI Marketplace and searching for or selecting the API you want to use.
From the API page, you will be able to:
- View metrics like latency, popularity, and success rate
- Explore the GraphQL Schema
- Form GraphQL queries and test the query directly from your browser
- Generate code snippets and queries that make it easy to integrate the API into your project
- Easily subscribe or adjust your subscription to the API
- Analyze all your API usage from one dashboard
Summary
Our Team is excited to introduce GraphQL APIs to the RapidAPI Marketplace! We would love to hear your thoughts on this update, or what you think we should work on next! Let us know via email or Twitter.
You can also check out previous product updates if you missed them.
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