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GraphQL Playground VS Graphweaver

Compare GraphQL Playground VS Graphweaver and see what are their differences

GraphQL Playground logo GraphQL Playground

GraphQL IDE for better development workflows

Graphweaver logo Graphweaver

Turn multiple data sources into a single GraphQL API
  • GraphQL Playground Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-09
  • Graphweaver Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-23

Graphweaver is a GraphQL Gateway that can connect many data sources together to create an API. It can be used to create a headless CMS, an API Gateway, or used as a Backend for mobile apps.

Why?

We consistently find that everyone has lots of sources of truth. You know, CRM holding customer data, accounting systems handling invoices, and more scattered across different SaaS platforms and databases? It's a real pain to sync it all up!

In the past we used to copy data from everywhere to the DB, but that always breaks at some point.

Well, after years of grappling with this issue, we wanted a way to easily build a single GraphQL API in front of all those sources. An API that allows you to execute queries that even span across datasources (give me DB records where customer in CRM name is "Bob"), and also allows you to administer your data all from one place.

That's why we built Graphweaver. We've been using it on our projects for about a year now and think you'll love it too!

Features

📝 Code-first GraphQL API: Save time and code efficiently with our code-first approach. 🚀 Built for Node in Typescript: The power of Typescript combined with the flexibility of Node.js. 🔗 Connect to Multiple Datasources: Seamlessly integrate Postgres, MySql, Sqlite, REST, and more. 🎯 Instant GraphQL API: Get your API up and running quickly with automatic queries and mutations. 🔄 One Command Import: Easily import an existing database with a simple command-line tool.

GraphQL Playground features and specs

  • Interactive Interface
    GraphQL Playground provides a user-friendly, interactive interface for exploring and testing GraphQL queries and mutations. This allows developers to quickly experiment with their GraphQL API.
  • Auto-Completion and Syntax Highlighting
    It offers auto-completion and syntax highlighting which increases productivity by helping developers write correct GraphQL queries faster.
  • Built-in Documentation
    The built-in documentation explorer helps developers easily navigate and understand the GraphQL schemas, types, and fields available in their API.
  • Real-time Error Feedback
    Provides real-time error feedback, making it easier to identify and fix issues while writing queries, resulting in smoother development workflows.
  • Request History
    GraphQL Playground maintains a history of queries and mutations executed, allowing developers to quickly revisit and reuse previous work.
  • Customizable Settings
    It is highly customizable, allowing developers to set endpoint URLs, headers, and other configurations to match various environments (development, staging, production).

Possible disadvantages of GraphQL Playground

  • Performance
    GraphQL Playground can be resource-intensive, consuming significant amounts of memory and CPU, which might slow down the development environment, especially with large schemas.
  • Security Concerns
    As an interactive playground embedded in web interfaces, it may expose sensitive data or operations if not properly secured, necessitating careful configuration and access control.
  • Limited Offline Use
    Since it relies on an active endpoint to fetch schema details and execute queries, its utility is limited when working offline.
  • Deprecated Maintenance
    As of 2020, the GraphQL Playground repository is not actively maintained anymore, which means it may not receive updates, bug fixes, or new features.
  • Complex Configuration
    In comparison to simpler alternatives, setting up and configuring GraphQL Playground can be more complex and time-consuming.

Graphweaver features and specs

  • Integration
    Graphweaver allows for the integration of multiple data sources, providing a unified view and ease of data management.
  • Efficiency
    It enhances the efficiency of data retrieval by using GraphQL, which minimizes data over-fetching.
  • Flexibility
    Graphweaver supports flexible query structures, which can be tailored to specific data needs and requirements.
  • Developer Experience
    Provides a developer-friendly experience with comprehensive documentation and tools to streamline the development process.

Possible disadvantages of Graphweaver

  • Complexity
    The initial setup and configuration can be complex, especially for developers who are not familiar with GraphQL or integrating diverse data sources.
  • Learning Curve
    There might be a steep learning curve for new users who are not accustomed to using GraphQL or related technologies.
  • Resource Intensive
    Integrating many data sources might demand higher computational resources, which could increase operational costs.

Analysis of GraphQL Playground

Overall verdict

  • Yes, GraphQL Playground is considered a good tool, especially for its user-friendly features and robust functionality. It significantly enhances the API development experience, particularly when dealing with GraphQL.

Why this product is good

  • GraphQL Playground is a popular tool for testing and exploring GraphQL APIs. It offers an intuitive interface, enabling developers to write GraphQL queries, inspect responses, and debug their GraphQL operations with ease. The tool supports multiple environments and provides features like query history, documentation exploration, and real-time subscriptions, making it a versatile choice for both beginner and advanced users.

Recommended for

    GraphQL Playground is recommended for developers and software engineers who are working with GraphQL APIs. It is particularly useful for those who need to test and debug APIs, create and manage queries efficiently, or just learn more about how a GraphQL API works. It's suitable for both individual developers and teams looking to streamline their API development workflows.

GraphQL Playground videos

Graphql playground review completa parte 1

More videos:

  • Review - Create Local GraphQL Playground
  • Review - Graphql playground review completa parte 2

Graphweaver videos

Graphweaver live demo at the Atlassian head-office for SydJS

More videos:

  • Demo - Quick Start

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to GraphQL Playground and Graphweaver)
Developer Tools
87 87%
13% 13
GraphQL
69 69%
31% 31
APIs
70 70%
30% 30
Realtime Backend / API
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, GraphQL Playground seems to be a lot more popular than Graphweaver. While we know about 12 links to GraphQL Playground, we've tracked only 1 mention of Graphweaver. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

GraphQL Playground mentions (12)

  • Show HN: API Parrot – Automatically Reverse Engineer HTTP APIs"
    Have you tried something like GraphQL playground before? https://github.com/graphql/graphql-playground There's other tools out there that can generate similar docs or playgrounds, given you have a schema/spec of some type. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Exploring GraphiQL 2 Updates and New Features
    GraphiQL is a tool that was created to help developers explore GraphQL APIs, maintained by the GraphQL Foundation. But when GraphiQL became more and more popular, developers started to create additional GraphQL IDEs. A good example of this was GraphQL Playground, which quickly became the most popular GraphQL IDE. It was loosely based on GraphiQL, but had more features and a better UI. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Why Is It So Important To Go To Meetups
    I went to a GraphQL meetup and they used the gql playground and a similar schema generator to what I was using, and it made me feel relevant. - Source: dev.to / about 3 years ago
  • GraphQL subscriptions at scale with NATS
    Here, we'll create a simple GraphQL server and subscribe to a subject from our resolver. We'll use GraphQL playground to mock client side behavior. Once we're connected we'll use NATS CLI to send a payload to our subject and see the changes on the client. - Source: dev.to / over 3 years ago
  • GraphQL vs REST in .NET Core
    Now we can consume created GraphQL API. In the GitHub Repo same functionality has been added with REST approach and GraphQL endpoint. Also widely used Swagger configured for Web API Endpoints as well as AltairUI added for GraphQL endpoint testing. Naturally, AltairUI it not a must for GraphQL, you can also use Swagger, GraphiQL, or GraphQL Playground. - Source: dev.to / over 3 years ago
View more

Graphweaver mentions (1)

  • Getting started creating a web app with multiple data sources? Graphweaver!
    We’re a small dev team based in Sydney and in between client projects we’ve been working on our own open-source tool, Graphweaver. Graphweaver allows you to combine multiple data sources (Databases, Rest APIs, Saas platforms) and expose a single GraphQL API. It’s a bit like Hasura or Step Zen but with more of a code-first flexibility. It can take your database and with a single import command, generate your code... Source: almost 2 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing GraphQL Playground and Graphweaver, you can also consider the following products

How to GraphQL - Open-source tutorial website to learn GraphQL development

GraphQL Hive - Open Source GraphQL Federation Platform

GraphQl Editor - Editor for GraphQL that lets you draw GraphQL schemas using visual nodes

Hasura - Hasura is an open platform to build scalable app backends, offering a built-in database, search, user-management and more.

Stellate.co - Everything you need to run your GraphQL API at scale

Apollo Engine - Unlock the full power of GraphQL