Uploaded April 2018 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
Users expect real-time data. They want their banking transaction notifications now. Their order confirmed now. They want their user experience to feel—connected. The world has moved to push and users are waiting for the data-driven experiences we create on the web to catch up.
GraphQL is Facebook’s response to this challenge and it is quickly proving itself as an exciting alternative to RESTful APIs for a wide range of contexts. GraphQL is a query language that provides a clean and simple syntax for consumers to interrogate your APIs. These queries are strongly typed, hierarchical and enable clients to retrieve only the data they need.
In addition to the familiar pull based request-response pattern, GraphQL provides a mechanism for clients to subscribe to real-time updates in the form of Subscriptions. Subscriptions are exciting as they represent the core ability we need to satisfy the connected push based experience that our users demand.
In this talk, we will take a hands-on look at GraphQL and see how it can be used to build real-time APIs that are a joy to use. Additionally, we will see how we can integrate a React client with GraphQL using Relay Modern, Facebook's JavaScript framework for building data driven applications. By the end of the session you will understand what is required to craft a compelling real-time user experience with GraphQL, and have the knowledge to deliver on these requirements.
Users expect real-time data. They want their banking transaction notifications now. Their order confirmed now. They want their user experience to feel—connected. The world has moved to push and users are waiting for the data-driven experiences we create on the web to catch up.
GraphQL is Facebook’s response to this challenge and it is quickly proving itself as an exciting alternative to RESTful APIs for a wide range of contexts. GraphQL is a query language that provides a clean and simple syntax for consumers to interrogate your APIs. These queries are strongly typed, hierarchical and enable clients to retrieve only the data they need.
In addition to the familiar pull based request-response pattern, GraphQL provides a mechanism for clients to subscribe to real-time updates in the form of Subscriptions. Subscriptions are exciting as they represent the core ability we need to satisfy the connected push based experience that our users demand.
In this talk, we will take a hands-on look at GraphQL and see how it can be used to build real-time APIs that are a joy to use. Additionally, we will see how we can integrate a React client with GraphQL using Relay Modern, Facebook's JavaScript framework for building data driven applications. By the end of the session you will understand what is required to craft a compelling real-time user experience with GraphQL, and have the knowledge to deliver on these requirements.
