The Practical Differences
When I started building APIs, REST was the default. Then GraphQL came along and promised to fix everything. After using both in real projects, I've learned that the choice isn't about which is 'better' but about what fits your use case. Let's break down the practical differences.
REST: Simple and Predictable
REST is built around resources and HTTP methods. You have endpoints like /users and /users/1. Each endpoint returns a fixed shape. It's easy to understand, cache, and debug.
Here's a typical REST call:
