Jun 10, 2026
Front-End Performance Optimization Techniques
Post By
Flatlabs Engineering
Published
April 15, 2026
C
hoosing an API style is one of the earliest architectural decisions in a product, and one of the hardest to reverse. REST and GraphQL both work well at scale; the right choice depends on who consumes your API, how varied their data needs are, and how much operational complexity your team is ready to own.
Choose the API style your clients need today, and design it so you can change your mind tomorrow.
When REST Is the Better Fit
REST maps cleanly to resources, benefits from standard HTTP caching, and is understood by virtually every developer and tool. For public APIs, CRUD-heavy products and third-party integrations it is usually the lowest-risk choice.
When GraphQL Earns Its Complexity
GraphQL lets clients request exactly the fields they need in a single round trip, which helps when several front ends such as web, mobile and partner dashboards consume the same data in different shapes. The trade-off is extra work for caching, field-level authorization, query cost limits and monitoring.
How We Decide
We start from the consumers: how many clients there are, how different their data needs are, and how much control the team has over them. We prototype the two or three most demanding screens against both styles, compare payload size and round trips, and document the decision so it can be revisited as the product grows.
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