API Architectures for Mobile Communication
Learn about the different API architectural styles for communication in mobile System Design.
In the previous lesson, we discussed client-server communication protocols to enable communication between the two. In this lesson, we’ll focus on API architectures that enable communication using protocols.
In modern mobile development, three API architectures have taken center stage: REST, GraphQL, and gRPC. Each offers a distinct approach to structuring communication, with different performance, flexibility, and complexity assumptions. Understanding these architectures is not just about knowing technical definitions. It’s about recognizing how your choice influences user experience, scalability, and future development flexibility.
We’ll focus on how each architecture is designed, where each fits, and what trade-offs it introduces when building for mobile platforms.
Let’s start by understanding the architectural style.
What is an architectural style?
An architectural style defines a standardized set of rules and protocols for designing APIs. It ensures efficiency, consistency, and maintainability across the development lifecycle. Architectural styles offer a structured approach that guides how systems interact, influencing every application growth and evolution stage.
When selecting an architectural style for mobile communication, it is essential to evaluate specific characteristics that align with the design problem. Each style acts as a predefined template with its constraints and strengths, so it is important to choose the one that best fits the application’s requirements.
Let’s examine key properties that typically guide this selection:
Architectural Style Properties
Characteristic | Description |
Performance | Choosing an API to perform well and not to become a bottleneck with a large influx of requests. |
Scalability | Opt for an API to be easily scalable, such as adding more features and capacity to the back-end servers. |
Ease of development | Developers often choose a simple and familiar style to implement a solution. |
Portability | The ability to move an API architecture style from one software environment to another. |
Software maintenance support | There is ample support offered by the API providers. |
Choosing the right architectural style also depends on broader considerations such as the needs of API consumers, business goals, and long-term system functionality. Since switching styles later can introduce significant complexity and cost, making an informed decision early on in the design process is crucial.
Types of API architectural styles
We’ll consider three commonly used architectural styles as discussed at the start. Each style has pros and cons, and even if most developers adopt REST, it may not be suitable for our design problem.
REST
Representational State Transfer (REST) is a widely adopted architectural style for designing APIs, especially crucial in mobile application development. Introduced by
In the context of mobile applications, RESTful APIs offer a structured way for apps to fetch, update, and synchronize data with back-end servers. Given the challenges unique to mobile ...