Do we need GraphQL?

GraphQL is a tool, not a silver bullet. And each tool is useful for its category of tasks.

You need GraphQL if:

• models are constantly evolving and the number of fields is growing;
• there is an interaction between the backend and the frontend, which is supposed to have a state manager;
• you need static typing on the frontend according to the server data schema;
• there is much different entity (models), there are many connections between them and the client needs their aggregations (LEFT JOIN) and in one HTTP request.

You don't need GraphQL if:

• there is a work with files or other binary data;
• authentication if there is oidc and/or oauth2;
• CRDT and multiuser editing;
• there is active inter-server communication requiring speed, memory, and/or traffic.

But what if we fall into both categories? Make two, three APIs on different technologies. Any API is a facade in front of services and models. Writing them is not so labor-consuming if your business logic is placed on your abstraction layer and different API implementations reuse it.