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StepZen VS GraphQL Playground

Compare StepZen VS GraphQL Playground and see what are their differences

StepZen logo StepZen

A low code way to create GraphQL APIs for any backend—REST, SQL, NoSQL, SOAP/XML. Deploy a single or federated graph to StepZen's cloud and run with built-in parallel execution, security for APIs and data, and performance & reliability optimizations.

GraphQL Playground logo GraphQL Playground

GraphQL IDE for better development workflows
  • StepZen Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-24

StepZen provides a unique low code approach to creating GraphQL APIs for any data source—REST, SQL, NoSQL, SOAP/XML, and GraphQL. With one command, you can specify your backend; StepZen introspects it and generates the schema for you. Then, with a few lines of code and powerful directives (@rest, @dbquery), you can quickly customize a schema—or write one from scratch. Another directive (@materializer) lets you stitch graphs together, seamlessly scaling GraphQL across teams and domains. In addition, by using @materializer, you avoid managing concerns across subgraphs, writing stubs of types, and other complexities.

Whether you deploy a single graph or a federated graph-of-graphs, with one command, you deploy it to StepZen's highly available cloud. Automatic parallelized execution, security and control of your APIs and data, and performance and reliability optimizations are built-in. So we keep your GraphQL infrastructure secure and stable so you can focus on your business.

  • GraphQL Playground Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-09

StepZen features and specs

  • Ease of Integration
    StepZen simplifies the process of integrating various APIs by allowing developers to create GraphQL endpoints with minimal configuration.
  • GraphQL Optimization
    StepZen automatically optimizes GraphQL queries, improving performance by minimizing over-fetching and under-fetching of data.
  • Developer Experience
    The platform offers a robust set of tools and an intuitive interface, enhancing the overall developer experience when building and deploying APIs.
  • Unified Data Layer
    StepZen enables the creation of a unified data layer, making it easier to aggregate and manage data from multiple sources.
  • Customization
    With StepZen, developers can customize their GraphQL endpoints to cater to specific use cases and business requirements.

Possible disadvantages of StepZen

  • Learning Curve
    Although it's designed to be user-friendly, new users might encounter a learning curve when getting acquainted with the tool's features and capabilities.
  • Cost
    Depending on the scale and number of integrations, using StepZen might incur additional costs that need to be justified against its benefits.
  • Limited Offline Support
    Since StepZen is primarily a cloud-based solution, it may have limited capabilities when it comes to offline or local development environments.
  • Dependency on External Service
    Relying on StepZen could make applications dependent on an external service, which may impact control over the development process and data handling.

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.

StepZen videos

Build an API With The StepZen GraphQL Studio (API Workshop)

More videos:

  • Tutorial - Learn How To Query Any HarperDB Database With GraphQL Using StepZen

GraphQL Playground videos

Graphql playground review completa parte 1

More videos:

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

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to StepZen and GraphQL Playground)
GraphQL
37 37%
63% 63
Developer Tools
0 0%
100% 100
APIs
36 36%
64% 64
API Tools
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

GraphQL Playground might be a bit more popular than StepZen. We know about 12 links to it since March 2021 and only 10 links to StepZen. 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.

StepZen mentions (10)

  • Automatically Generate REST and GraphQL APIs From Your Database
    StepZen and AWS AppSync excel at generating GraphQL APIs for MySQL and NoSQL databases. StepZen simplifies the process of combining multiple data sources, while AppSync provides smooth integration with AWS services and real-time data capabilities. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Query Real-time Data With GraphQL And Streaming Database
    StepZen is a platform to build and deploy GraphQL APIs that integrates and aggregate data from various sources. In the demo section, I will show how to build a GraphQL API in declarative code using StepZen. - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
  • Using SingleStoreDB, WebAssembly and GraphQL
    The final step is to use GraphQL. We'll create a free account on StepZen. Once logged-in, we can access the Account, Admin Key and API Key. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • How to use federation with a headless CMS?
    Have a look at https://stepzen.com, which allows you to federate any data source no matter the framework or service used to create it. It has a generous free tier. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Apollo Server v4 Breaking Changes. Time to move away?
    When moving away from Apollo Server, and you're looking for a replacement built with JavaScript or TypeScript, let me give you some options. If you want to keep building your GraphQL API schema first, you might want to consider Mercurius (which relies on Fastify) or GraphQL Yoga. If you're going to build your GraphQL API code or resolver first, have a look at TypeGraphQL or Nexus. Alternatively, there are great... - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
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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
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What are some alternatives?

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

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

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

OneGraph - OneGraph is a GraphQL service that wraps and connects the internet's SaaS APIs. Build integrations to Stripe, Intercom, Salesforce, Zendesk, GMail, and more 10-100x faster with OneGraph.

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

Graphweaver - Turn multiple data sources into a single GraphQL API

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