Why Big Tech Doesn't Always Use REST: The Evolution of API Architecture at Scale

Essential Terms Defined Before diving in, here are the critical concepts you'll see throughout this article: REST (Representational State Transfer) : A simple, stateless architecture using HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) where every request is independent. The most common API pattern on the web. GraphQL : A query language that lets clients request EXACTLY the data they need in a single request, eliminating over-fetching (getting too much data) and under-fetching (needing multiple requests)