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Easily build endless shopping experiences with Elastic Path and GraphQL, a modern API implementation approach that simplifies data manipulation.
GraphQLs a modern, efficient, and easy to use API protocol. GraphQL by definition is a query language for APIs and a server side runtime for fulfilling those queries with your existing data.
GraphQL is particularly beneficial to businesses with a headless architecture, as it fosters seamless data retrieval from the backend, allowing businesses to build more unique frontend experiences.
Eliminate the hassle of chasing down up-to-date APIs and accelerate time to market for new experiences.
Reduce code duplication across the front and backend. Eliminate channel silos causing inconsistent customer experiences.
Minimize over and under-fetching, and improve network performance that impacts overall customer experience.
GraphQL and REST are both API design architectures which can be used to build web services for data driven applications. Overall, Rest and GraphQL are very similar, however GraphQL has made some small changes that alter the developer experience of building and consuming an API.
In addition, GraphQL can be very beneficial in complex circumstances for example, when there are a 1000+ endpoints working in your backend, your frontend developers need a system where they can easily call on specific resources in the backend. Facebook is a great example of business that would greatly benefit from GraphQL. However, for most eCommerce businesses, it’s highly unlikely that it will get to that level of that complexity and GraphQL is NOT needed.
Elastic Path primarily leverages REST rather than GraphQL. Elastic Path was developed to be developer-first centric and thus, we have designed our APIs with developers in mind. We provide RESTful APIs for developers to learn and use, which eliminate complexity while also providing maximum flexibility.
At the end of the day both REST and GraphQL can achieve the same end results, and it will all come down to preference.
At Elastic Path you can choose to adopt REST or leverage Elastic Path GraphQL starter kit.
Still unsure if you need GraphQL for ecCommerce? Get answers to your top questions.
Yes. Elastic Path recently released GraphQL Server for Elastic Path Commerce Cloud which provides a GraphQL implementation of Elastic Path Commerce Cloud APIs to support shopping experiences. This release enables developers more familiar with GraphQL, as compared to REST, to more easily build shopping experiences.
In our experience you can do almost anything with both REST and GraphQL. There are some technical differences, but nothing that's a roadblock in achieving a business goal. The choice between REST and GraphQL comes down to preference.
If you already have frontend developers, and they prefer to use query languages and they only have the technical skill sets to use GraphQL, then GraphQL will be a good choice. However, this answer will change from use case to case based on a few different characteristics:
By answering the questions above our technical team can better help you to make the right decision for your business.
Your development team will be responsible for handing all of your code base for the frontend and the backend. Each developer has learned one, or many, code languages to help your system talk to each other. Essentially, each developer would prefer to use a code language that they are most comfortable using. For example, we can all agree that English is one of the most universal languages and many people learn how to speak it. However, there are very specific nuances and can oftentimes be difficult for a non-native speaker. Someone who is a non-native speaker would prefer to speak in their native language, solely due to preference. This same goes for choosing between GraphQL and RESTful APIs.
GraphQL is useful when a prospect wants to, or already hosts, GraphQL and they want to work with multiple systems from multiple vendors. It makes life easier for the prospect’s frontend developers by combining all the different data sources into one uniform API and allows all the business logic to be in one place. However, it becomes less useful if you aren’t the host, and you come across a commerce vendor that offers a GraphQL API. In this instance, it does not make it easier for a customer to work with multiple vendors, especially if other vendors are leveraging REST. In this case, GraphQL would be “useless”. Our team can help you to understand and make an informed decision.
We recommend REST APIs because:
Explore the GraphQL Server and Playground in the GraphQL Repo.
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