subscriptions-transport-ws VS graphql-over-http

Additionally, we created a bit more work for ourselves by upgrading the library we use for GraphQL subscriptions over web sockets, moving from the seemingly unmaintained subscriptions-transport-ws to the active graphql-ws project (which is URLQ’s library of choice for subscriptions).

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.

I'm looking for graphql server that can do queries and mutations over websocket, like subscriptions-transport-ws. Juniper and async-graphql both looks promising and async-graphql at least uses wording Subscriptions (WebSocket transport) in features but i couldn't find much more or any examples about that from the docs or repo.

graphql-yoga is built on other packages that provide functionality required for building a GraphQL server such as web server frameworks like express and apollo-server, GraphQL subscriptions with graphql-subscriptions and subscriptions-transport-ws, GraphQL engine & schema helpers including graphql.js and graphql-tools, and an interactive GraphQL IDE with graphql-playground.

The javascript implementation is at subscriptions-transport-ws

Okay, so, how do I use WebSockets to add support for the GraphQL subscription operation? Doing a basic Google search, you’d be faced with a single solution, namely subscriptions-transport-ws. Looking through the repository, checking recent comments, reading through the issues and open PRs - might have you notice the abundance of bugs and their security implications. A summary can be found here.

While subscription-transport-ws from Apollo initially started off this journey, it is not actively maintained and GraphQL WS by Denis definitely is a great replacement to that having no external dependencies and having the ability to work across many frameworks.

apollo-server plans to remove WebSocket support, which is currenlty done over the deprecated graphql-ws protocol (as implemented by the unmaintained subscription-transport-ws module by apollo), in the next major version.

https://github.com/apollographql/subscriptions-transport-ws, which is used by Apollo Server does support executing queries and mutations actually but you are better off moving away it anyway (check the text in their README!)

Another major pain is the fact that operation names and HTTP codes are often hidden in request bodies which makes it really hard to see what is going on in standard monitoring tools. It's possible to write some converter but it's beyond me why some people decided that requests which failed on the server respond with status 200. GraphQL spec doesn't define how it should behave, there's only a proposal (https://github.com/graphql/graphql-over-http)

The GraphQL over HTTP specification states the following:

However, if you are doing GraphQL subscriptions over Server Sent Events (HTTP) (which is currently not part of the GraphQL over HTTP specification), the data flow is only from server to client. So each operation must be a separate request, which should be no problem when using HTTP/2, as the browser connection limit is not hit so fast (There are also workarounds to this if you cannot ise HTTP/2).

Complementary to the note, you can learn more about GraphQL over HTTP in the specification over here: https://github.com/graphql/graphql-over-http/blob/main/spec/GraphQLOverHTTP.md

GraphQL-spec, GraphQL-over-HTTP: guarantees your GraphQL API to work with all existing GraphQL clients (Apollo, Relay, URQL, and more).

Note: While GraphQL can be done over almost any protocol, this article focuses on the most commonly used protocol GraphQL over HTTP. However, most knowledge can be transferred to other protocols such as GraphQL over WebSockets or other more exotic ones.

There is also the GraphQL over HTTP Specification repository https://github.com/graphql/graphql-over-http

graphql-sse is a reference implementation of the GraphQL over Server-Sent Events Protocol aiming to become a part of the GraphQL over HTTP standard.

With no further ado - I humbly introduce graphql-ws. A coherent, feature-full, zero-dependency, plug-n-play, lazy, simple, server and client implementation of the new, security first GraphQL over WebSocket Protocol with full support for all 3 GraphQL operations: Queries, Mutations and Subscriptions. The protocol aims to be standardised and become a part of GraphQL with the help of the foundation’s GraphQL over HTTP work group.

You could additionally also choose a specific HTTP code for that scenario (although that would contradict the official GraphQL over HTTP spec https://github.com/graphql/graphql-over-http/blob/main/spec/GraphQLOverHTTP.md).