Hello guys! I hope you are doing well and exploring the cool stuff in the tech world like me. I'm Vinit Parekh, in this article I'm going to discuss some types of APIs, specifically the pros and cons of those APIs so we can identify when to use those types of APIs.
So without wasting your precious time, let's get started!
REST (Representational State Transfer):
Pros:
Widely used and well-established
Easy to understand and use
Good for CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations
Good for small to the medium size data transfer
Cons:
Not efficient for large data transfers
Difficult to handle real-time updates or notifications
Can have issues with over-fetching or under-fetching of data
This can result in multiple round trips for complex queries
GraphQL:
Pros:
More efficient than REST, allowing for the transfer of only the data required by the client
Supports real-time updates
Strongly typed and self-documented
Good for large or complex queries
Cons:
Relatively new, with a smaller community and less support compared to REST
The steep learning curve for developers new to the technology
Not as well-suited for simple CRUD operations
gRPC:
Pros:
Fast and efficient, especially for high-frequency, low latency scenarios
Supports bi-directional streaming
Uses Protocol Buffers for data serialization, resulting in smaller payload sizes and faster serialization/deserialization times
Cons:
Requires additional work to make it work with HTTP/1.1, as it is built on HTTP/2
The steep learning curve for developers new to the technology
Less flexible compared to REST or GraphQL
TRPC (Tars Rpc):
Pros:
High-performance and efficient
Supports various programming languages
Good for large or complex queries
Cons:
Relatively unknown and not widely used outside of China
The steep learning curve for developers new to the technology
Not as well-suited for simple CRUD operations
Now let's understand APIs architectures through this beautiful image:
