GraphQL and Amazon AppSync architecture

GraphQL is a query and manipulation language for APIs. GraphQL provides a flexible and intuitive syntax to describe data requirements and interactions. It enables developers to ask for exactly what is needed and get back predictable results. It also makes it possible to access many sources in a single request, reducing the number of network calls and bandwidth requirements, therefore saving battery life and CPU cycles consumed by applications.

Making updates to data is made simple with mutations, allowing developers to describe how the data should change. GraphQL also facilitates the quick setup of real-time solutions via subscriptions. All of these features combined, coupled with powerful developer tools, make GraphQL essential to managing application data.

GraphQL is an alternative to REST. RESTful architecture is currently one of the more popular solutions for client-server communication. It's centered on the concept of your resources (data) being exposed by a URL. These URLs can be used to access and manipulate the data through CRUD (create, read, update, delete) operations in the form of HTTP methods like GET, POST, and DELETE. REST's advantage is that it's relatively simple to learn and implement. You can quickly set up RESTful APIs to call a wide range of services.

However, technology is getting more complicated. As applications, tools, and services begin to scale for a worldwide audience, the need for fast, scalable architectures is of paramount importance. REST has many shortcomings when dealing with scalable operations. See this use case for an example.

In the following sections, we'll review some of the concepts surrounding RESTful APIs. We'll then introduce GraphQL and how it works.

For more information about GraphQL and the benefits of migrating over to Amazon, see the Decision guide to GraphQL implementations.