react with GraphQL Clients

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Using React with GraphQL clients like Apollo Client is a good idea? The same results i can achieve with react and new Context API.

Basically i can consume GraphQL APIs using axios or any other libraries like this. And for state management i can use react's new Context APIs which is really simple.

axios.get('localhost://4000?qraphql').then((res)=>{

//do something with the response.
})

Is there still any Advantages to go with Apollo Client. Why would I really go for Apollo client when i can achieve the same without it. It will help me to reduce my bundle size.

apollo-boost apollo-client react-apollo graphql reactjs
1 Answers

Apollo client provides a ton of features above and beyond simply fetching data from the server. What follows is a non-exhaustive list:

  • Exposed loading, error and data state, so you don't have to create additional stateful components just to fetch data asynchronously
  • A normalized caching layer that allows you to avoid making unnecessary repeat requests to your server
  • Observable queries that allow your UI to update whenever any query or mutation changes a relevant part of the cache
  • Powerful error handling tools through apollo-link-error
  • Pagination support through loadMore
  • Optimistic UI updates for mutations
  • Support for Subscriptions through apollo-link-ws
  • Integration with local state management through apollo-link-state
  • Support for deferred queries through the @defer directive
  • Server-side-rendering support
  • Apollo Client Developer Tools chrome extension that includes built-in GraphiQL console, query watcher, mutation inspector and cache inspector.

See the extensive docs here for more details.

There are common patterns that result in having to write (and test) a bunch of boilerplate code, for example maintaining loading state so that your UI knows when a request is complete. Using Apollo, or any other similar client, eliminates the need to write all that boilerplate and provides a clean, well-tested API for you to work with. If you're working on a team, there's also something to be said for using a well-documented library that some of your team may already be familiar with, rather than having to learn some new API that was created just for a particular project.

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