GraphQL is a query language specifically designed for querying graph-shaped data, hence the name GraphQL. Although it shares the "QL" suffix with SQL, GraphQL is fundamentally a different language. It is not inherently tied to NoSQL databases, even though GraphQL can be used with NoSQL databases as the underlying storage. It can also work with SQL databases or any other storage method, such as text files or in-memory storage.
You can think of gRPC as an open-source framework built on top of RPC, designed with HTTP/2 in mind. Therefore, gRPC inherits the advantages of HTTP/2, including:
As depicted in the diagram, when using gRPC for remote service invocation, the client only needs a gRPC stub. It sends Proto Requests to the gRPC server and receives the invocation results through Proto Responses from the server.
Both gRPC and GraphQL fall under the category of Interface Description Languages (IDLs) as they describe how communication occurs between computers. They are applicable to different programming languages, and various tools can be used to generate type interfaces in different languages. GraphQL is transport-agnostic and commonly works over HTTP, while gRPC operates over HTTP2.
Request Format: In gRPC, we make one method call at a time. If we need more data than what a single method returns, we have to make multiple method calls. If we require the response data from the first method call to determine the next method to call, it results in consecutive round trips. This can cause significant latency unless the client and server are in the same data center. This issue is known as underfetching, where the returned data from a request is insufficient, leading to the need for multiple requests to retrieve the required data.
Both gRPC and GraphQL have good forward compatibility. This means that existing clients can be updated to communicate with updated servers using their respective mechanisms.
One of the benefits is that existing clients can be updated to communicate with updated servers using the same client-side code.
gRPC is a framework for RPC (Remote Procedure Call), and we discussed gRPC earlier. Now, let's talk about how to debug an RPC interface.
RPC is short for Remote Procedure Call, which is a technology used in distributed systems. It allows one application to call functions or services of another application over a network. RPC can be implemented using various protocols, and JSON-RPC is one of them. JSON-RPC uses JSON data format for encoding and decoding, and it uses HTTP or other protocols for data transmission.
