REST, GraphQL, or gRPC? Architects Should Choose by Boundary, Not Company

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Senior application architect Swetha Golla argues that the long-running debate between REST, GraphQL, and gRPC has no single winner — instead, the right protocol depends on which of three distinct boundaries an API serves. REST remains the best fit for public APIs due to its zero onboarding friction, native HTTP caching, and decades of tooling support. gRPC is the preferred choice for internal service-to-service communication, offering protobuf serialization roughly three times faster than JSON for larger payloads, compile-time contract enforcement, and bidirectional streaming. GraphQL suits scenarios where one backend must serve multiple divergent frontends, but only when teams are prepared to maintain the schema as a dedicated product. Golla cautions that exposing GraphQL publicly without query-cost controls introduces serious performance risks, as demonstrated by the rate-limiting approaches adopted by Shopify and GitHub.

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