apollo-datasource

What is apollo-datasource?

The apollo-datasource package is a toolkit for building data sources in Apollo Server. It provides a class-based approach to organizing your data fetching logic, allowing you to connect to different types of data sources, such as REST APIs or databases, in a structured and efficient manner. It is designed to work seamlessly with Apollo Server, making it easier to build GraphQL APIs.

What are apollo-datasource's main functionalities?

Creating a REST data source

This feature allows you to extend the RESTDataSource class to connect to a REST API. You can define methods to perform HTTP requests to your API endpoints. The example code demonstrates how to create a data source for fetching user data from a REST API.

class MyAPI extends RESTDataSource {
  constructor() {
    super();
    this.baseURL = 'https://myapi.com/';
  }

  async getUser(userId) {
    return this.get(`users/${userId}`);
  }
}

Caching responses

Apollo DataSource provides built-in support for caching responses from your data sources. This feature helps in reducing the load on your data sources and improving the performance of your GraphQL API. The example code shows how to cache the response of a REST API call for 60 seconds.

class MyAPI extends RESTDataSource {
  constructor() {
    super();
    this.baseURL = 'https://myapi.com/';
  }

  async getUser(userId) {
    return this.get(`users/${userId}`, undefined, {
      cacheOptions: { ttl: 60 }
    });
  }
}

Other packages similar to apollo-datasource

dataloader

Dataloader is a generic utility to be used as part of your application's data fetching layer to provide a simplified and consistent API over various remote data sources such as databases or web services via batching and caching. While Dataloader is not tied to any specific data fetching mechanism or strategy like REST or databases, it provides a similar benefit of batching and caching requests. Unlike apollo-datasource, it doesn't provide a structured way to define data sources but offers a more flexible batching and caching mechanism.

type-graphql-dataloader

type-graphql-dataloader is an integration of DataLoader with TypeGraphQL. It aims to simplify the process of batching and caching in GraphQL resolvers. This package is specifically designed to work with TypeGraphQL, making it less generic compared to apollo-datasource. It provides decorators and helpers to easily integrate DataLoader with TypeGraphQL, offering a more GraphQL-centric approach to data loading with a focus on type safety.