REST was never meant to be exciting.
It was meant to be boring, predictable, and reliable.
That is why it stuck around.
Most teams start with REST.
– Clear endpoints.
– Familiar HTTP semantics.
– Caching that works without much effort.
Then the product grows.
– Clients want different shapes of data.
– Endpoints multiply.
– Over-fetching becomes normal.
That is usually when GraphQL shows up.
– One request.
– Exactly the data you need.
– Great for fast-changing frontends.
But it comes with tradeoffs.
– Harder caching.
– More complex performance tuning.
– New ways to overload your backend.
Neither is the default winner.
– REST favors operational simplicity.
– GraphQL favors flexible data access.
The real decision is not architectural. It is about which problems you are willing to live with
