Best GraphQL Books 2024

The Road to GraphQL: Your journey to master pragmatic GraphQL in JavaScript with React.js and Node.js

The Road to GraphQL Your journey to master pragmatic GraphQL in JavaScript with React.js and Node.js by Robin Wieruch is your personal journey to master pragmatic GraphQL in JavaScript. The book is packed with applications that you will build along the way with React.js and Node.js. From then on, he will be able to implement full-stack JavaScript applications.

This book is not intended to be a complete reference to the GraphQL APIs, nor is it a detailed guide to the internals of the GraphQL specification. Instead, your goal is to walk through learning GraphQL with JavaScript in a pragmatic way, building client and server applications yourself. The book covers many facets of GraphQL in JavaScript that are important for building modern applications, without simply messing up libraries like Apollo before finding them. It starts with basic HTTP requests to make GraphQL requests first and then moves on to using dedicated GraphQL libraries for that. You will even have the opportunity to implement your own GraphQL client library, so you can understand how these libraries work under the hood. There are no hidden abstractions in this book, just a lot of the basics for JavaScript, React.js, Node.js, and GraphQL.

This is the best GraphQL book in 2023.

GraphQL in Action

by Samer Buna is a hands-on guide that shows you how to master the GraphQL language, create and optimize a data API service, and utilize it in a front-end client application. You’ll learn how to build a comprehensive GraphQL server by working through setup, security, and error handling. You’ll also learn how to easily integrate GraphQL into your existing codebase to provide simple, efficient, and scalable data APIs.

Reduce bandwidth demands on your APIs by just retrieving the information you require in a single request! The GraphQL query language makes it easier to connect with web servers, allowing for smarter API queries that can greatly improve data request efficiency. You’ll learn how to bring those benefits to your own APIs using GraphQL in Action, providing your clients the ability to ask for just what they need from your server, no more, no less. From design concepts and syntax to performance optimization, GraphQL In Action covers all you need to know about the language. When you’re through, you’ll have all the knowledge you need to start creating and using GraphQL-based scalable data APIs.

Full-Stack Web Development with GraphQL and React: Taking React from frontend to full-stack with GraphQL and Apollo, 2nd Edition

by Sebastian Grebe guides you in creating a full-stack web application from scratch using modern web technologies such as Apollo, Express.js, Node.js, and React. First, you’ll start by configuring and setting up your development environment. Next, the book demonstrates how to solve complex problems with GraphQL, such as abstracting multi-table database architectures and handling image uploads using Sequelize.

You’ll then build a complete Graphbook from scratch. While doing so, you’ll cover the tricky parts of connecting React to the backend, and maintaining and synchronizing state. In addition to this, you’ll also learn how to write Reusable React components and use React Hooks. Later chapters will guide you through querying data and authenticating users in order to enable user privacy. Finally, you’ll explore how to deploy your application on AWS and ensure continuous deployment using Docker and CircleCI. By the end of this web development book, you’ll have learned how to build and deploy scalable full-stack applications with ease using React and GraphQL.

you will learn

Build a GraphQL API by implementing models and schemas with Apollo and Sequelize
Set up an Apollo Client and build frontend components using React
Write Reusable React components and use React Hooks
Authenticate and query user data using GraphQL
Use Mocha to write test cases for your full-stack application
Deploy your application to AWS using Docker and CircleCI

Learning GraphQL: Declarative Data Fetching for Modern Web Apps

Learning GraphQL Declarative Data Fetching for Modern Web Apps by Alex Banks and Eve Porcello provide a clear learning path for frontend web developers, backend engineers, and project and product managers who want to get started with GraphQL. You will explore graph theory, graph data structure, and GraphQL types before learning how to create a schema for a photo sharing application. This book also introduces you to the Apollo Client, a popular framework that you can use to connect GraphQL to your user interface. You will:

Explore graph theory and review the most popular graph examples in use today
See how GraphQL applies database query methods to the Internet
Create an outline for a PhotoShare application to serve as a roadmap and contract between the frontend and backend teams
Use JavaScript to create a fully functional GraphQL service and Apollo to implement a client
Learn how to prepare GraphQL APIs and clients for production

Full Stack GraphQL Applications: With React, Node.js, and Neo4j

Build hyper-fast and hyper-efficient web applications with GraphQL! This practical, comprehensive guide introduces the powerful GRANDStack for developing full stack web applications based in graph data structures.

In Full Stack GraphQL Applications you will learn how to:

Build backend functionalities for GraphQL applications
Model a GraphQL API with GraphQL type definitions
Utilize Neo4j as a backend database
Handle authentication and authorization with GraphQL
Implement pagination and rate limiting in a GraphQL API
Develop a GraphQL service with Apollo Server
Install Neo4j Database on different platforms
Create a basic frontend application using React and Apollo Client
Deploy a full stack GraphQL application to the cloud

The GraphQL query language radically reduces over-fetching or under-fetching of data by constructing precise graph-based data requests. In Full Stack GraphQL Applications you’ll learn how to build graph-aware web applications that take full advantage of GraphQL’s amazing efficiency. Neo4j’s William Lyon teaches you everything you need to know to design, deploy, and maintain a GraphQL API from scratch. He reveals how you can build your web apps with GraphQL, React, Apollo, and Neo4j Database, aka “the GRANDstack,” to get maximum performance out of GraphQL.

Black Hat GraphQL: Attacking Next Generation APIs

Is for anyone interested in learning how to break and protect GraphQL APIs with the aid of offensive security testing. Whether you’re a penetration tester, security analyst, or software engineer, you’ll learn how to attack GraphQL APIs, develop hardening procedures, build automated security testing into your development pipeline, and validate controls, all with no prior exposure to GraphQL required.

Following an introduction to core concepts, you’ll build your lab, explore the difference between GraphQL and REST APIs, run your first query, and learn how to create custom queries.

You’ll also learn how to:

Use data collection and target mapping to learn about targets
Defend APIs against denial-of-service attacks and exploit insecure configurations in GraphQL servers to gather information on hardened targets
Impersonate users and take admin-level actions on a remote server
Uncover injection-based vulnerabilities in servers, databases, and client browsers
Exploit cross-site and server-side request forgery vulnerabilities, as well as cross-site WebSocket hijacking, to force a server to request sensitive information on your behalf
Dissect vulnerability disclosure reports and review exploit code to reveal how vulnerabilities have impacted large companies

Full Stack Serverless: Modern Application Development with React, AWS, and GraphQL

Full Stack Serverless Modern Application Development with React, AWS, and GraphQL by Nader Dabit will guide you through the process of building full-stack applications with React, AWS, GraphQL, and AWS Amplify. You’ll learn how to build and integrate services into your customers’ applications while learning general best practices, deployment strategies, rich media management, and continuous integration and delivery on the go. You will:

Learn how to build serverless applications that solve real problems
Understand what is (and is not) possible when using these technologies.
Create a GraphQL API that interacts with DynamoDB and a NoSQL database
Take a look at how authentication works and find out the difference between authentication and authorization.
Get a detailed look at how serverless features work and why they matter
Build Full Apps on AWS and Build Apps Offline with Amplify DataStore

Serverless GraphQL APIs with Amazon’s AWS AppSync

by Matthias Biehl gives you a head start using Amazon’s AWS AppSync’s serverless GraphQL APIs. For modern API design, GraphQL is now a viable choice. Many organizations are considering following in the technological footsteps of Facebook, Yelp, and Shopify, which have established successful APIs using GraphQL. Using GraphQL is fantastic, but it’s only half the battle: it necessitates the installation and maintenance of software infrastructure components by hand. AppSync is a cloud-based GraphQL API platform. Because it is serverless, there is no need to build up infrastructure. It dynamically scales up and down depending on the load. It provides an SDK for synchronization and offline support to your app developers. You simply pay for what you use, so there’s no need for a large initial investment, and it might save your company thousands of dollars in IT costs. This book will give you the knowledge you need to get started with AWS AppSync, whether you are new to GraphQL or an experienced GraphQL developer. You’ll get into the practice of constructing APIs with AWS AppSync with in-depth walkthroughs, pictures, and code examples after briefly understanding the GraphQL underpinnings. The book walks you through designing a GraphQL schema, developing GraphQL APIs, integrating data sources, developing resolvers with AppSync templates, securing your API, providing real-time data, developing offline support and synchronization for your apps, and much more.

Craft GraphQL APIs in Elixir with Absinthe: Flexible, Robust Services for Queries, Mutations, and Subscriptions

Craft GraphQL APIs in Elixir with Absinthe Flexible, Robust Services for Queries, Mutations, and Subscriptions by Bruce Williams and‎ Ben Wilson will build a GraphQL based API from scratch using Absinthe, starting from the basics. Learn about the type system and how to extend your schema to meet the needs of your application. Discover a growing ecosystem of tools and utilities to understand, debug, and document your API.

Put it into production, but do it safely with best practices in mind. Find out how complexity analysis and persistent queries can help you support your users in a flexible but responsible way. Along the way, learn how Elixir makes a difference for a high-performance, fault-tolerant API. Use asynchronous and batch execution, or write your own custom plugins to extend Absinthe. Go live with subscriptions, delivering data via websockets in addition to the famously robust performance and real-time capabilities of Elixir (and Erlang / OTP).