What are the key differences between REST and GraphQL, and in what scenarios would you choose one over the other?

In my final year of college, I worked on a group project that involved building a web application for managing student information. We initially chose REST for its simplicity, utilizing various endpoints to fetch student data, courses, and grades. However, as our project grew, we faced challenges with over-fetching and under-fetching data, which prompted us to explore GraphQL. Ultimately, we switched to GraphQL, allowing us to query exactly what we needed in a single request. This taught me the importance of selecting the right technology based on the project requirements and scalability.

While working part-time at a tech startup, I was involved in a project where we needed to integrate various third-party services into our application. The lead developer explained that we chose REST for simpler APIs due to its straightforward approach. However, for more complex data interactions, like fetching user profiles and related posts, we implemented GraphQL. This experience helped me understand how the choice between REST and GraphQL depends on the specific needs of the application, especially when dealing with multiple data sources.

In my first job as a junior developer, I worked on an e-commerce platform where we had both REST and GraphQL APIs. While REST was used for standard CRUD operations, GraphQL was employed for dynamic product searches and customer queries. This dual approach allowed us to leverage the strengths of both technologies, as REST offered simplicity for basic tasks, while GraphQL provided flexibility for more complex data retrieval. This experience reinforced my understanding of how using both can optimize performance based on the specific scenarios we encounter.