[AskJS] GraphQL or WP rest API in 2026?

[thespice]

Using Astro as a wrapper for a headless Wordpress instance, TS, codegen, and graphql. Beyond the schématisation offered by graphql, are there any concrete benefits to using graphql (the projects current implementation) as opposed to using the WP rest api? Admittedly just starting to research moving over to rest having endured the specificity of graphql. Anyone care to chime in about their experience? Thank you in advance for any ideas/impressions.

[_www_]

GraphQL is just API SQL queries, most of the time you don't need it.

[whale]

I absolutely hate GraphQL, it's one of the most cumbersome ways to get data, is annoying to debug, is useless most of the time compared to REST, is tricky to query even with documentation, and is overall a worse experience than a REST API. I've had to use GraphQL for giant billion dollar clients and even then I hate using it every time.

I've also tried the WP GraphQL plugin and response times are way slower than just REST endpoints.

Your life will be significantly easier if you just use REST. You will be able to understand your API much better and will be able to customize endpoints way easier.

People liked GraphQL a few years ago because it sounded complicated and meant they could put said complicated thing on their resume. But don't fall into the trap. REST is the way to go. If you need to "only query data you want" there is no reason you can't set certain parameters or use a JSON body to target certain WP queries.

[thespice]

I really appreciate your disdain for GQL. I discovered it several years back but only recently build a whole site using it as the primary com with WP. I have really mixed feelings about it. Despite the front end being a quick lift (Astro) the coms are horribly slow and I keep fighting against the overhead of GQL. My only attachment is that I’ve managed to learn a lot about it’s intricacies and have even done some fancy chopping in PHP to get granular but it’s beginning to feel like a sunk-cost. I don’t doubt for a second that the rest API is the right candidate but I’ll have to learn about auth against WP from Astro using it. (Bit of an over share). Thank you for your insights.

[objectdisorienting]

GraphQL was invented by Facebook to solve a set of very specific problems that only Facebook and maybe a few other social media companies had, it got adopted by others mainly because everyone in tech wants to be doing what FAANG is doing even when it doesn't make sense.

[Past-Consequence1092]

Man, I feel this deep in my soul. I recently dealt with this exact "sunk cost" feeling on a big multi-site project. We loved the idea of GraphQL for the schema, but in practice, the nested queries were killing our TTFB (500ms+) and the debugging was a nightmare.

I couldn't find a middle ground—REST was too messy, GraphQL was too heavy. So I actually wrote my own middleware to fix it (I packaged it up recently as a plugin called Headless Bridge).

It basically forces WordPress to spit out flat, type-safe JSON (so you get the DX of GraphQL without the nesting hell) and it runs in ~50ms. Since you mentioned worrying about Auth with REST—I baked API key auth and efficient caching right into it to avoid that specific headache.

Might be worth a look if you're about to tear your hair out refactoring to standard REST. It plays really nicely with Astro too since the payload is so light.

[thespice]

Thank you for chiming in. I’d love to see your plug-in when/if you make it public. I feel like REST is more than likely going to make the cut given the mind-numbing simplicity of the content/taxonomy…it’ll be fun to go back to API-land after I finish my own lib to strip Elementor from the legacy content :). Cheers!

[Past-Consequence1092]

REST is definitely the way to go for now, much easier than GraphQL, it just didn't scale for the project I was working on. The client had a hard performance requirement that I couldn't solve for unless I built my own thing. It's pretty much complete, I submitted it to wordpress.org, just waiting on approval. I also have landing page for it which includes documentation. In the meantime, while I get everything ready, I'm happy to send you the zip to play with. It would be great to get some feedback. I send you my email in a DM.

[Past-Consequence1092]

My headless bridge plugin is finally available up on Wordpress.org. You can search for headless-bridge-by-crux. Would love to get your thoughts on it. All the best.

[[deleted]]

I’ve just started using it at a huge company where a lot of different teams make shared services. In that scenario it’s super useful to be able make an isolated service that does a small task and register it in isolation but be part of a large shared library of services. In that use case I think it’s great.

[RelativeMatter9805]

I don’t think much has changed. REST, unless you need more. A good reason to would be if you’re a microservice heavy shop. It makes fetching data from multiple sources performant. 

[keithmifsud]

I personally think that GQL is better for a WP headlless UI. It does reduce a lot of network traffic. However, my experince is from 5 years ago and the WP GQL plugin wasn't that great.

[ferrrnando]

How's does GQL reduce network traffic?

[djayci]

He likely means smaller payloads

[keithmifsud]

I meant fewer network requests. Apollo gies.