Let’s say you make a call to a traditional REST API, and your use case is looking up a user’s phone number. Traditional REST APIs have some shortcomings. Developers lack control with traditional REST APIs GraphQL is a new way to address many pain points for application developers it is an open specification backed by a diverse community that has seen success at high scale. Not only can clients query for all the data they want in a single request, but the response will contain only the data they need. This is because they are able to reduce round trips to the server through their ability to retrieve all necessary data in just a single invocation. Apps that call GraphQL APIs are often much more performant than those that use traditional REST APIs. A GraphQL API is a new paradigm of sending and receiving data, offering clients a single endpoint to call for all data needed in one request. GraphQL is a standard query language for APIs and a runtime for fulfilling those queries with your data. Once you realize all the advantages of a GraphQL API, you’ll want to leverage it to build the best apps for your users. We’ll also discuss other GraphQL benefits, such as the ability to query your organization’s data for specific information. Let’s explore all of the flaws with traditional REST APIs, go over what GraphQL is, and how GraphQL solves these problems. However, traditional REST APIs have some challenges when it comes to building today’s highly performant and scalable web and mobile apps. Okay, so I know what you might be thinking: “But, I thought REST was the gold standard for APIs?” You’re not wrong REST is still a great way to design and implement APIs. Had this restaurant been the GraphQL Restaurant, you could order ravioli without cheese. You’ll get the ravioli with the cheese, or you’ll have to order something else.” Herein lies a fundamental problem with traditional REST endpoints - you as the client can’t change what the Cheese Ravioli Endpoint returns back to you. Your waiter comes over to your table and asks, “What would you like to order?” You reply, “I’ll take the ravioli, but please, no cheese.” To your chagrin, your waiter explains, “The cheese has already been added and can’t be removed. Imagine you’re out at your favorite restaurant - in this case we’ll call it the RESTaurant. This API allows developers to interact with the Salesforce Platform through GraphQL, providing a new way to create rich, performant mobile and web applications. As of Winter ’23, the Salesforce GraphQL API is generally available. We are excited to announce that we’re investing further in our experience APIs with the launch of the Salesforce GraphQL API. This blog was updated in November 2022 as GraphQL API is now generally available.
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