Understanding REST, SOAP, and GraphQL APIs

Here, we'll deep dive into the most common types of APIs: REST, SOAP, and GraphQL.

REST (Representational State Transfer) APIs are popular for their simplicity and scalability, utilized in various applications from social media to mobile and web apps.

SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) APIs are protocol agnostic, highly extensible, and often used in enterprise applications requiring high security and transactional needs.

GraphQL APIs offer data integration efficiency and are dynamic, enabling clients to specify precise data needs. It's excellent for complex systems and microservices architectures.

Examples of API Types

For REST API, Google leverages a REST API when fetching weather updates. It sends a HTTP request to the weather service API which then returns the weather detail.

An example of SOAP API is Salesforce. It uses a SOAP API to allow developers to access their Salesforce.com data and functionality.

For GraphQL API, Facebook uses it when the news feed is loaded. A GraphQL API call fetches specific data like user name, profile picture, posts, likes on posts, etc.