Sri Lakshmi Vadlamani | SER&IP 2021 Talk
Channel: SWAN Research Group
Date: 2022-04-19

"Can GraphQL Replace REST? A Study of Their Efficiency and Viability" by Sri Lakshmi Vadlamani, Benjamin Emdon, Joshua Arts, and Olga Baysal.

Abstract—Representational  State  Transfer  (REST)  has  traditionally  been  the  standard  web  service  architectural  style  for API  creation.  However,  its  popularity  has  been  challenged  with the  introduction  of  GraphQL,  an  open  source  query  language for  APIs  introduced  by  Facebook,  in  2015.  The  latter  has  been quickly  adopted  by  GitHub,  Shopify,  Airbnb,  Twitter  and  more online  portals  are  joining  the  list.  In  some  instances,  GraphQL has been adopted as an alternative architectural style or has been used  in  conjunction  with  REST. 

While  GraphQL  promises  a  considerable  improvement  over REST, much remains unexplored with respect to its efficiency and feasibility in its application. The goal of this paper is to determine viability  of  using  GraphQL  over  REST  for  API  architecture from  quantitative  and  qualitative  perspectives.  A  custom  API client  on  GitHub  is  constructed  to  check  on  the  response  times and  the  corresponding  magnitude  of  difference  between  REST and  GraphQL.  Thereafter,  the  paper  surveyed  employees  of GitHub to understand software developers’ educated opinion and perceptions about REST and GraphQL based on their practical experience with APIs. The results show that both API paradigms have  their  benefits  and  weaknesses,  and  one  cannot  replace  the other,  at  least  in  the  near  future.


Bio: Sri Lakshmi Vadlamani is a Master's Student at the Software Analytics Research Group (SWAN), School of Computer Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.