graphql-ws VS pothos

When using a GraphQL over Websocket protocol you can execute all operation kinds (query, mutation and subscription) over that transport as it is a bidirectional protocol.

The GraphQL over WebSocket solution definitely requires an additional library on the client for the complexity of the protocol (namely graphql-ws). The readme of that project describes how you can connect to a GraphQL over WebSocket compliant server.

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There is already a JavaScript implementation for server + client with support for multiplexing from the same maintainer of graphql-ws: graphql-sse

Actually WebSocket is not the only protocol for executing GraphQL subscriptions. There is also a graphql-over-sse protocol, which is much more lightweight, and uses Server Sent Events. A popular implementation of it is the graphql-sse library, which is maintained by the same person as graphql-ws. The setup and API of both libraries is pretty similar.

That said, I feel so close to success that I can't quite give up. I am using graphql-ws as I understand this to be the new standard implementation of GraphQL Subscriptions. However, of course, Apollo subscriptions have not been updated to implement this. So, looking at the Recipes over on the graphql-ws documentation I have found the guide for using Apollo client. However as I am new to Apollo, it is using a lot of terms I am unfamiliar with.

Okay but seriously, if you've fallen down the rabbit hole of Apollo docs pointing you towards one library (subscription-transport-ws) which then points you to another (graphql-ws) , and so on and so forth, then hopefully this helps pull you out.

The most common protocol used today for subscriptions is the Apollo websocket protocol.

GraphQL subscriptions are just web sockets. You can check graphql-ws package if you want something without Apollo dependency. Though I don't understand why you want to not depend on it in the first place.

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.)