Our teams report that Apollo has become the library of choice when building a React application that uses GraphQL to access data from a back-end service. Although the Apollo project also provides a server framework and a GraphQL gateway, the Apollo client gets our attention because it simplifies the problem of binding UI components to data served by any GraphQL backend. Put simply, this means less code needs to be written than using REST backends and redux.
Since it was first introduced in the Radar, we’ve seen a steady adoption of GraphQL, particularly as a remote interface for a Backend for Frontend (BFF). As they gain more experience, our teams have reached consensus on Apollo, a GraphQL client, as the preferred way to access GraphQL data from a React application. Although the Apollo project also provides a server framework and a GraphQL gateway, the Apollo client simplifies the problem of binding UI components to data served by any GraphQL backend. Notably, Apollo is used by Amazon AWS in their recent launch of the new AWS AppSync service.
