Mind Maps

API Design Architectures Compared

Mind Maps diagram · made in Skemio

Mind map comparing REST, GraphQL, gRPC, and WebSockets across transport protocols, data formats, and use cases.
Mind map comparing REST, GraphQL, gRPC, and WebSockets across transport protocols, data formats, and use cases.

What it shows

  • REST excels at public resource CRUD with battle-tested HTTP caching.
  • GraphQL prevents over-fetching on mobile but adds query parsing overhead.
  • gRPC cuts microservice latency via Protobuf binary serialization on HTTP/2.

The takeaway

Choose protocols by consumer needs: gRPC for internal speed, REST or GraphQL for clients.

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