GraphQL’s flexibility in allowing clients to request exactly what they need has been a game changer. This post walks through the process of migrating from REST APIs to GraphQL in a real-world frontend project.

Why We Considered GraphQL

REST was working, but we were facing some problems:

• Over-fetching or under-fetching data
• Multiple roundtrips to load related entities
• Rigid server endpoints and response formats

GraphQL offered:

• A single endpoint
• Control over the shape of the data returned
• Strong tooling and type safety

Setting Up Apollo Client

We used Apollo Client for data management on the frontend. Basic setup looked like this:

npm install @apollo/client graphql

import { ApolloClient, InMemoryCache, ApolloProvider } from '@apollo/client';

const client = new ApolloClient({
  uri: '/graphql',
  cache: new InMemoryCache(),
});

Then we wrapped the app with the provider:

<ApolloProvider client={client}>
  <App />
</ApolloProvider>

Writing Queries

Instead of calling multiple endpoints, we used queries like this:

query GetUser {
  user(id: "123") {
    name
    email
    posts {
      title
      createdAt
    }
  }
}

Apollo gave us useQuery to fetch this easily:

import { useQuery, gql } from '@apollo/client';

const GET_USER = gql`
  query GetUser {
    user(id: "123") {
      name
      email
      posts {
        title
        createdAt
      }
    }
  }
`;

const { loading, error, data } = useQuery(GET_USER);

Mutations

Updating data was just as clean:

mutation AddPost($title: String!) {
  addPost(title: $title) {
    id
    title
  }
}

Benefits Observed

After switching:

• Fewer network requests overall
• Easier frontend development
• Better performance on low-bandwidth devices
• Stronger type safety across the stack

---

Migrating to GraphQL simplified data handling and improved developer experience. It wasn’t instant, but the gains were clear once we integrated it into real features.