What the study found
The study found different performance advantages for different web programming interfaces. gRPC, a remote procedure call system, was fastest for the shortest execution time in large-scale read operations, while GraphQL and Thrift were faster when operations returned small amounts of data.
Why the authors say this matters
The authors present the comparison as a way to evaluate technologies commonly used to implement web programming interfaces. The study suggests that performance choice may depend on the size of the data being transferred and the kind of operation performed.
What the researchers tested
The researchers developed three applications, each using one of the technologies: GraphQL, gRPC, and Thrift. They tested the applications with JMeter, a load-testing tool, 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 were faster for operations that transported small volumes of data.
What to keep in mind
The abstract does not describe additional limitations beyond the specific comparison tested here. The results are limited to the three applications, the relational database operations, and the testing setup described in the article.
Key points
- The article compares GraphQL, gRPC, and Thrift.
- gRPC was fastest for large-scale read operations.
- GraphQL and Thrift were faster for small-volume data operations.
- The applications were tested with JMeter.
- Execution time and returned data volume were measured on a relational database.
Disclosure
- Research title:
- gRPC was fastest for large-scale reads; GraphQL and Thrift were faster for small data
- Authors:
- Piotr Rożek, Mariusz Dzieńkowski
- Institutions:
- Lublin University of Technology, Lublin University of Technology
- Publication date:
- 2026-03-30
- DOI:
- 10.35784/jcsi.8383
- OpenAlex record:
- View
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