System design concepts: REST vs GraphQL vs gRPC

Explore key differences, practical use cases, performance considerations, and trade-offs, and provides guidance on how to choose the right API architecture for distributed systems.

In today’s distributed systems and microservices architectures, developers have several options for building APIs. Three of the most widely used technologies are REST, GraphQL, and gRPC. Each of these technologies brings different strengths and trade-offs, so understanding them is key to making the right architectural decisions.

REST

REST (Representational State Transfer) is the most widely adopted API style. It leverages standard HTTP methods like GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, and follows resource-based conventions. REST APIs typically return data in JSON format but can support other formats like XML.

Key Characteristics

• Resource-oriented: Resources are accessed through URLs, and actions are performed using HTTP verbs.
• Statelessness: Each request is independent; no client state is stored on the server.
• Uniform Interface: Operations are standardized across the API.

Advantages

• Simplicity: Easy to implement and consume using standard HTTP tools.