graphql-helix VS pothos

Depends on language, I've build GraphQL servers in a few, though mostly JavaScript and Python. For Python I used to use Graphene, these days I use Strawberry.

For JavaScript, I originally used graphql-js and express-graphql, as these were the original libraries and I was a literal day 1 adopter. All the libraries are essentially just wrappers around graphql-js, so it's still viable to use directly. But for schema-building I now use Pothos (https://pothos-graphql.dev/), I'd probably use graphql-helix as the http layer (https://github.com/contra/graphql-helix).

If you want a lower level graphql server https://graphql-helix.vercel.app/ or https://benzene.vercel.app/ might be worth checking out.

While there are many GraphQL server packages available, we need one that will play nicely with Nuxt3's server engine (Nitro / h3). In the spirit of keeping things extensible and framework-agnostic, GraphQL Helix seems like a really good choice. Let's add it to our project:

Looks interesting, have you tried graphql-helix?

When using a JavaScript server, a convenient way to achieve this is with GraphQL Helix, which decouples the handling of the HTTP request from the GraphQL server. With Helix, we can have the routing logic be handled by a Node.js web framework (such as Express.js or Fastify), and then — depending on the requested path (i.e., the requested endpoint — we can provide the corresponding schema to the GraphQL server.

GraphQL Helix is a framework and runtime agnostic collection of utility functions for building your own GraphQL HTTP server. Instead of providing a complete HTTP server or middleware plugin function, GraphQL Helix only provides a handful of functions for turning an HTTP request into a GraphQL execution result. You decide how to send back the response.

import { envelop, useSchema, useLogger } from '@envelop/core'; import fastify from 'fastify'; import { processRequest, getGraphQLParameters } from 'graphql-helix'; // This creates the `getEnveloped` function for us. Behind the scense the wrapped functions are created once, here. const getEnveloped = envelop({ plugins: [useSchema(schema), useLogger()], }); const app = fastify(); app.route({ method: ['POST'], url: '/graphql', async handler(req, res) { // Here we can pass the request and make available as part of the "context". // The return value is the a GraphQL-proxy that exposes all the functions. const { parse, validate, contextFactory, execute, schema } = getEnveloped({ req, }); const request = { body: req.body, headers: req.headers, method: req.method, query: req.query, }; const { operationName, query, variables } = getGraphQLParameters(request); // Here, we pass our custom functions to Helix, and it will take care of the rest. const result = await processRequest({ operationName, query, variables, request, schema, parse, validate, execute, contextFactory, }); if (result.type === 'RESPONSE') { res.status(result.status); res.send(result.payload); } else { // You can find a complete example with Subscriptions and stream/defer here: // https://github.com/contrawork/graphql-helix/blob/master/examples/fastify/server.ts res.send({ errors: [{ message: 'Not Supported in this demo' }] }); } }, }); app.listen(3000, () => { console.log(`GraphQL server is running...`); });

Fortunately, we now have libraries like Graphql Helix, which, in my humble opinion, should replace express-graphql as the reference HTTP implementation since GraphQL Helix is also not tied to any web server framework.

If you are using Node.js there are a lot of implementations of GraphQL servers with a few being express-graphql, apollo-server, mercurius, graphql-helix and more. And if you are using other languages, you can see a great list here

Graphql Helix

A project I maintain Pothos uses a global namespace with a bunch of interfaces to allow plugins to extend interfaces defined in core or other plugins. This allows plugins to add new options and methods to objects and classes without the other packages needing to know anything about them.

I noticed this being shared around on Twitter the other day - pretty handy, as I'm currently trying to architect a similar experience for my job using Pathos and graphql-codegen.

- tRPC

But I'd likely throw out Clerk a cheaper option:

- Supertokens, and also since Supertokens is easy (lots of enthusiastic reports about it), has a managed solution (which is cheaper than the alternatives), is secure and scalable (rotating refresh tokens with JWTs), open source, has magic links, and the architecture of Supertokens would allow me to simply and quickly eject to self-hosting it if/when I'd eventually need to (if the app ever reaches mass-market scale).

And I might throw out tRPC for the equivalent GraphQL experience (esp. if business strategy dictates I need a 3rd party API):

- GQty.dev on the client, for inferred queries/mutations. For rapid dev speed. Simple code example: https://gqty.dev/docs/intro Then move to URQL or Relay at scale, or just skip GQty and go with URQL from the start (if scalability trumps dev speed).

- Pothos http://pothos-graphql.dev on the server, for auto building the schema from your TS code (aka. code-first). Better than Nexus (e.g. Max Stoiber moved from Nexus to Pothos on his Bedrock starter template because Pothos is best in class: https://bedrock.mxstbr.com/tools/pothos/ ).

And I might throw out NextJS (Webpack) for the equivalent experience in Vite:

- vite-plugin-ssr, since both architectural control (libraries > frameworks) and Vite rocks. I'd likely then have to make solito-vite https://github.com/nandorojo/solito/discussions/157 to have a unified navigation between React Native and Web, but Solito is allegely tiny, so recreating it should be doable.

(If doing all of these replacements, maybe starting from scratch would be easier than modifying create-universal-app ... That said, I think if someone made a starter repo with the above choices it would be a real killer!)

Then I'd also likely use:

- Vercel (and try their Edge Functions, for a serverless sweet v8 isolates experience without slow cold starts), or maybe Cloudflare Workers (cheaper, slightly more hassle?) for hosting.

- Planetscale or Supabase for the DB. (Not brave enough to try EdgeDB or SurrealDB just yet, though EdgeDB is close..) Unless I had a specific use case where a more specialized/optimized DB would make sense.

This stack should stick even post-MVP, as it's not only optimized for a solo developer but for scalability.

Have you used Pothos? It's a way to make GraphQL schemas in TypeScript, in a type-safe way. So the creator of Prisma Client Rust is thinking about making a Pothos-style API based on the t builder pattern:

I would recommend Pothos (https://pothos-graphql.dev/) as a more modern alternative to typegraphql or nexus.

Depends on language, I've build GraphQL servers in a few, though mostly JavaScript and Python. For Python I used to use Graphene, these days I use Strawberry.

For JavaScript, I originally used graphql-js and express-graphql, as these were the original libraries and I was a literal day 1 adopter. All the libraries are essentially just wrappers around graphql-js, so it's still viable to use directly. But for schema-building I now use Pothos (https://pothos-graphql.dev/), I'd probably use graphql-helix as the http layer (https://github.com/contra/graphql-helix).

Pothos is a breeze of fresh air when it comes to building GraphQL APIs. It is a library that lets you write code-first GraphQL APIs with an emphasis on pluggability and type safety. And it has an awesome Prisma integration! (I am genuinely excited about this one, it makes my life so much easier.)

In today's article we are going to create a GraphQL api using the Koa framework together with the GraphQL Yoga library and Pothos. In addition, we will use Kysely, which is a query builder entirely written in TypeScript.

If you're a GraphQL developer, Pothos is the best example - all your user-defined types just fits in it like a glove 99% of the time. It definitely makes the most use of TS generics.

https://pothos-graphql.dev/

(I'm a bit sleepy, so this is the main one I can think of at the moment that I really enjoy using.)