gRPC was fastest for large read operations in comparison test

What the study found: The study found that gRPC was the fastest option for large-scale read operations, while GraphQL and Thrift were faster when operations moved small amounts of data.

Why the authors say this matters: The authors present this comparison as a performance study of web programming interfaces and suggest that the findings can help distinguish how GraphQL, gRPC, and Thrift behave under different data sizes.

What the researchers tested: The researchers built three applications, each using one of the three technologies: GraphQL, gRPC, and Thrift. They tested the applications with JMeter, a tool for load testing, and measured execution time and the amount of data returned during operations on a relational database.

What worked and what didn't: gRPC showed the shortest execution time for large-scale read operations. GraphQL and Thrift performed faster for operations that transported small volumes of data.

What to keep in mind: The abstract does not describe additional limitations, beyond the comparison being based on three developed applications, JMeter testing, and relational-database operations.

Key points

• The study compared GraphQL, gRPC, and Thrift.
• gRPC was fastest for large-scale read operations.
• GraphQL and Thrift were faster for operations with small data volumes.
• The applications were tested with JMeter.
• Execution time and returned data volume were measured on a relational database.