GraphQL vs REST: The Complete Comparison

GraphQL and REST (Representational State Transfer) are two popular approaches for building APIs. While REST has been the industry standard for over a decade, GraphQL has gained massive popularity for solving specific problems that REST struggles with.

This comprehensive guide compares GraphQL and REST across multiple dimensions to help you make the right choice for your project. Try our GraphQL formatter and schema validator to work with GraphQL queries, or use our JSON formatter and JSON validator for REST responses. You can also convert GraphQL to JSON or generate GraphQL from JSON.

Quick Overview

How They Work

The fundamental difference is in how clients request data. Here's the same scenario with both approaches:

REST API Example

Multiple requests to different endpoints:

// Request 1: Get user
GET /api/users/123

Response:
{
  "id": 123,
  "name": "John Doe",
  "email": "[email protected]",
  "bio": "...",
  "avatar": "...",
  // ... many other fields you might not need
}

// Request 2: Get user's posts
GET /api/users/123/posts

// Request 3: Get comments for each post
GET /api/posts/1/comments
GET /api/posts/2/comments

GraphQL Example

Single request with exact data requirements:

// Single request to /graphql
POST /graphql

Query:
{
  user(id: 123) {
    name
    email
    posts(limit: 5) {
      title
      comments(limit: 3) {
        author
        text
      }
    }
  }
}

// Get exactly what you asked for in one response

Notice how GraphQL lets you get exactly the data you need in a single request, while REST requires multiple round trips. Use our GraphQL minifier to compress queries for production use.

Feature Comparison

When to Use Each Approach

Real-World Example: Social Media Feed

Let's see how both approaches handle a common scenario: loading a social media feed with posts, authors, and comments.

query GetFeed {
  feed {
    posts {
      title
      content
      author {
        name
        avatar
      }
      comments(limit: 3) {
        text
        author { name }
      }
    }
  }
}

Performance Considerations

Migrating from REST to GraphQL

You don't have to choose one or the other! Many companies run both side-by-side:

GraphQL & REST API Tools

Continue Learning

External Resources & References