4 GraphQL APIs for your next side project

The evolution from REST to GraphQL has been a significant shift in the world of web services and APIs. REST (Representational State Transfer) emerged in the early 2000s as a standard for designing networked applications, based on principles like statelessness, cacheability, and a client-server architecture. Its simplicity, scalability, and wide adoption made it the go-to solution for many years.

However, as web applications grew more complex and demanding, REST’s limitations became apparent. Issues such as over-fetching and under-fetching of data, lack of real-time capabilities, and inflexibility in adapting to changing requirements led to the need for a more advanced solution.

GraphQL was introduced by Facebook in 2012 to address these challenges. It is a query language and runtime for APIs, which allows clients to request exactly the data they need, avoiding over-fetching and under-fetching. With its strong type system, GraphQL enables a delightful developer experience with better validation, introspection, and autocomplete.

When integrating with a new service, I tend to choose GraphQL if it’s offered as an option. If you’re looking for some examples of GraphQL APIs for your next side project, take a look at the list below.

BitQuery

bitquery explorer

Bitquery is a powerful and versatile API that provides developers access to on-chain data from various blockchain networks. With Bitquery’s API, users can query data across multiple blockchains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and many others, using a single GraphQL endpoint.

Key features of Bitquery’s API include:

1. Unified Data Access: Bitquery’s API enables users to fetch data from multiple blockchain networks with a single query, streamlining the process of gathering information and reducing complexity.
2. On-Chain Data: The API provides access to a wide array of on-chain data, such as transactions, balances, token transfers, smart contract events, and more.
3. Analytics and Aggregations: The API supports nalytics and aggregation functions, enabling users to perform complex calculations and derive insights from raw blockchain data.
4. Real-time Data: up-to-date information on blockchain transactions and activities.

If you’re looking for a “decentralized” and more affordable alternative, you can also check out The Graph. I’ve had mixed results with The Graph, where Bitquery seems more consistent overall.

Canopy

Canopy API

Canopy API is an powerful option for querying Amazon ecommerce data. With Canopy API you can query for products, pricing, reviews, categories, and search results without the restrictions of some of Amazon’s official APIs (rate limits and restrictive terms of use). The pricing model caters to developers looking for a free and pay as you go plan to avoid heavy bills before achieving product-market-fit.

Key features of Canopy API include:

1. Product data: Canopy provides real-time product data such as pricing, images, description, and more.
2. Reviews Data: For each product you can also retrieve reviews. This allows you to develop insights from your products or your competitors by finding common themes in reviews (or even ask Chat GPT to do this for you).
3. Category Data: The Amazon product data is a great taxonomy for all things ecommerce. Drill into the taxonomy or pull top-selling products from individual categories.
4. Search Results: Provides a paginated result set of the top products for search results on Amazon. Use this to track how a product is ranking against the competition.
5. International Support: Currently, the API supports Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, with more planned in the future.

Canopy API offers a solution for retrieving Amazon ecommerce data to help developers build ecommerce tooling or their next SAAS project.

Yuzu

Yuzu is a comprehensive financial data API that provides developers with access to a wide range of datasets and information. Key features of the Yuzu API include:

1. U.S. Stocks: Access data on over 7,900 stocks, including ADRs, REITs, warrants, and more. The API provides trades, quotes, aggregates (minute, hour, day), splits, and over 10 years of historical data.
2. ETFs & Mutual Funds: Obtain information on over 28,000 ETFs and mutual funds, including NAV, management style, expense ratio, and more. The API also provides trades, quotes, aggregates, splits, and over 10 years of historical data.
3. News: Access thousands of news articles and press releases published daily, with flexible search and content and image previews.
4. Company Logos: Access logos for the Wilshire 5000 and 1000 additional U.S. equities, with 24-hour turnaround for additional logos. Logos and logo marks are available in both vector and raster images.
5. Crypto: Get data on over 1,900 trading pairs from popular exchanges like Coinbase, Binance, and Binance U.S., including trades, quotes, and aggregates, as well as up to 10 years of historical data.
6. Forex: Access data on over 1,200 trading pairs, including quotes, aggregates, and more than 12 years of historical data. The API also provides detailed currency metadata.

Yuzu offers a versatile and extensive solution for accessing and analyzing financial data, making it a valuable resource for developers building financial applications, tools, or conducting research.

Yelp

It was awesome to see Yelp with a GraphQL option! The Yelp API is an incredible tool that enables developers to integrate Yelp’s unrivaled local business data into their applications. Yelp is a popular platform for users to discover, rate, and review local businesses, making its data valuable for various use cases, such as recommendations, mapping, and local search applications.

Key features of the Yelp API include:

1. Business Search: Developers can search for businesses based on various criteria, such as location, keywords, categories, and price range, providing users with relevant local business results.
2. Business Details: The API provides detailed information about specific businesses, including their name, address, phone number, rating, review count, photos, and more.
3. Reviews: Access Yelp’s user-generated reviews and ratings for businesses, giving developers the ability to display rich, authentic content in their applications.
4. Autocomplete: The Yelp API offers an autocomplete feature that suggests search terms based on user input, improving the search experience and helping users find businesses more efficiently.
5. Event Search: Developers can access information about local events, including details like event name, description, location, and time, enabling them to create event discovery applications.

With this data developers can build rich, engaging applications to help users discover or interact with local businesses.

Other Recommendations

What other GraphQL APIs should make this list? Drop a comment to let me know, and I would love to take a look.