RESTful APIs vs GraphQL

Developers should learn RESTful APIs because they are the standard for building web services and enabling interoperability between different systems, such as in microservices, mobile backends, and public APIs meets developers should learn graphql when building modern web or mobile applications that require flexible, efficient data fetching, such as in complex frontend-backend integrations or microservices architectures. Here's our take.

RESTful APIs

Nice Pick

Developers should learn RESTful APIs because they are the standard for building web services and enabling interoperability between different systems, such as in microservices, mobile backends, and public APIs

Pros

• They are essential for creating scalable and maintainable applications that need to expose data or functionality over the internet, such as in e-commerce platforms, social media apps, or IoT devices
• Related to: http-protocol, json

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

GraphQL

Developers should learn GraphQL when building modern web or mobile applications that require flexible, efficient data fetching, such as in complex frontend-backend integrations or microservices architectures

Pros

• It's particularly useful for scenarios where clients need to avoid multiple round-trips to servers or when APIs must evolve without breaking existing queries
• Related to: apollo-client, relay

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

The Verdict

These tools serve different purposes. RESTful APIs is a concept while GraphQL is a tool. We picked RESTful APIs based on overall popularity, but your choice depends on what you're building.

The Bottom Line

RESTful APIs wins

Based on overall popularity. RESTful APIs is more widely used, but GraphQL excels in its own space.