Company
Date Published
Author
Adam Jiroun
Word count
1414
Language
English
Hacker News points
None

Summary

The blog post explores the complexities of building robust APIs in the context of microservices, focusing on the three most popular API development approaches: REST, gRPC, and GraphQL. REST, the most widely used architecture, benefits from its alignment with HTTP protocols, making it familiar to most developers, though it can produce bloated responses for complex resources. gRPC, designed by Google, is noted for its efficiency and suitability for low-powered clients like IoT devices, but it lacks browser support and has a steeper learning curve. GraphQL, known for its query precision, allows clients to request specific data fields, reducing payload sizes but increasing server-side complexity and caching difficulty. The post emphasizes that no single API model fits all scenarios, and the choice depends on specific application requirements, suggesting that a combination of these models could be used within the same system to meet diverse needs effectively.