What are the differences between RESTful APIs and GraphQL, and when would you choose one over the other?

In my final year project, I worked on a student directory system where we had to decide between REST and GraphQL for our API. We chose RESTful APIs because we wanted to keep things simple and our data structure was straightforward. Each endpoint represented a resource, like students or courses, and we could easily fetch a list or a single item based on the URL. This approach worked well for our needs, as we didn't require complex data interactions. It also taught me how to structure API endpoints and handle responses effectively, which is foundational knowledge for anyone starting in tech.

During my time volunteering for a community event, I helped develop a small web application to manage event registrations. We initially set out with a RESTful API, which allowed us to create, read, update, and delete event details easily. However, as we added features, like user feedback and different event types, we found ourselves needing more flexibility in querying data. This experience made me appreciate how GraphQL could have simplified our API interactions, allowing us to request only the data we needed in one go instead of hitting multiple endpoints. This taught me the importance of choosing the right tool based on project evolution.

In my first job as a junior developer at an e-commerce startup, we had to decide between REST and GraphQL for our product catalog API. We initially went with REST because it was familiar to the team, and we structured our endpoints around product categories. However, as we scaled and our data needs became more complex, we transitioned to GraphQL. This allowed our front-end team to fetch exactly what they needed for product displays without over-fetching data. This experience highlighted the importance of being adaptable and understanding how to make technology choices that align with business needs.