<!-- mobian-agent-page publisher="dailydev" canonical="https://daily.dev/posts/a-brief-history-of-api-rpc-rest-graphql-trpc-t55zn2mcm" -->

---
title: A Brief History of API: RPC, REST, GraphQL, tRPC | daily.dev
description: This post provides a brief history of API technologies, including RPC, REST, GraphQL, and tRPC. It discusses their advantages, disadvantages, and their impact...
canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/a-brief-history-of-api-rpc-rest-graphql-trpc-t55zn2mcm
twitter:card: summary_large_image
twitter:site: @dailydotdev
og:type: website
og:site_name: daily.dev
og:title: A Brief History of API: RPC, REST, GraphQL, tRPC | daily.dev
og:description: This post provides a brief history of API technologies, including RPC, REST, GraphQL, and tRPC. It discusses their advantages, disadvantages, and their impact...
og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/a-brief-history-of-api-rpc-rest-graphql-trpc-t55zn2mcm
og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/T55zn2Mcm.png
og:image:alt: A Brief History of API: RPC, REST, GraphQL, tRPC
og:image:width: 1200
og:image:height: 630
og:locale: en
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# A Brief History of API: RPC, REST, GraphQL, tRPC

**[Community Picks](https://daily.dev/sources/community)** · [@jiasheng](https://daily.dev/jiasheng) · 8 min read · 50 upvotes · 4 comments

## Summary

This post provides a brief history of API technologies, including RPC, REST, GraphQL, and tRPC. It discusses their advantages, disadvantages, and their impact on the development of web applications. The author also shares their personal experiences and opinions on these technologies.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://dev.to/zenstack/a-brief-history-of-api-rpc-rest-graphql-trpc-fme>

## Community discussion

Top comments from developers on daily.dev.

**@ushieru** · 0 upvotes

> I believe that gRPC has an advantage over tRPC because it is multilingual. But I don't rule out that tRPC could grow someday to new horizons. We can only wait.

**@azagatti** · 0 upvotes

> tRPC is amazing, expanding to other languages and platforms will be a success.

**@cmh** · 0 upvotes

> As an aspiring full stack developer It really is very important to me to understand how this technologies work and this article just did the work of telling me what i need to know

**@devwise** · 0 upvotes

> Greatly structured article. Through it, I relived my own journey from SOAP to REST to GraphQL. I am still not on the bandwagon of gRPC/tRPC yet. But, I believe that it’s the next step in the evolution of these protocols.

## Similar posts on daily.dev

- [Don’t just attend KubeCon \+ CloudNativeCon, Merge Forward your experience\!](https://daily.dev/posts/don-t-just-attend-kubecon-cloudnativecon-merge-forward-your-experience--l0rpp73x8) · CNCF · 1 upvotes · 0 comments
- [Announcing H2 2026 KCDs](https://daily.dev/posts/announcing-h2-2026-kcds-m96goajm1) · CNCF · 1 upvotes · 0 comments
- [Two months of Open Community Groups](https://daily.dev/posts/two-months-of-open-community-groups-asf52zhbs) · CNCF · 0 upvotes · 0 comments
- [CNCF Unveils Schedule for KubeCon \+ CloudNativeCon Europe 2026](https://daily.dev/posts/cncf-unveils-schedule-for-kubecon-cloudnativecon-europe-2026-ikhcoa5cb) · CNCF · 2 upvotes · 0 comments
- [CNCF Debuts KubeCon \+ CloudNativeCon Japan 2026 Schedule](https://daily.dev/posts/cncf-debuts-kubecon-cloudnativecon-japan-2026-schedule-xp5pyudub) · CNCF · 1 upvotes · 0 comments

---

Tags: [#backend](https://daily.dev/tags/backend), [#graphql](https://daily.dev/tags/graphql), [#rest-api](https://daily.dev/tags/rest-api), [#trpc](https://daily.dev/tags/trpc)

[View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/a-brief-history-of-api-rpc-rest-graphql-trpc-t55zn2mcm)

```json
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]}
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"A Brief History of API: RPC, REST, GraphQL, tRPC","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/a-brief-history-of-api-rpc-rest-graphql-trpc-t55zn2mcm","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/a-brief-history-of-api-rpc-rest-graphql-trpc-t55zn2mcm"},"datePublished":"2023-03-14T06:07:30.806Z","dateModified":"2026-05-28T02:16:03.659Z","description":"This post provides a brief history of API technologies, including RPC, REST, GraphQL, and tRPC. It discusses their advantages, disadvantages, and their impact...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/c8b2b4844da11c8ba22d1b21e65be5b5?_a=AQAEufR","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/c8b2b4844da11c8ba22d1b21e65be5b5?_a=AQAEufR","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Community Picks","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Person","name":"JS","url":"https://daily.dev/jiasheng","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/16688722?v=4","description":"Building tools to enable more people to pursue work they truly enjoy.","interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"EndorseAction"},"userInteractionCount":140}},"commentCount":4,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/a-brief-history-of-api-rpc-rest-graphql-trpc-t55zn2mcm","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":50},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":4}],"keywords":"backend,graphql,rest-api,trpc","timeRequired":"PT8M"}
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Community Picks","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/community"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"A Brief History of API: RPC, REST, GraphQL, tRPC"}]}
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/a-brief-history-of-api-rpc-rest-graphql-trpc-t55zn2mcm","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"I believe that gRPC has an advantage over tRPC because it is multilingual. But I don’t rule out that tRPC could grow someday to new horizons. We can only wait.","datePublished":"2023-03-14T17:57:53.207Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/T55zn2Mcm#c-hg8TluGyr","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Ushieru Kokoran","url":"https://daily.dev/ushieru","image":"https://avatars2.githubusercontent.com/u/32021976?v=4"}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"tRPC is amazing, expanding to other languages and platforms will be a success.","datePublished":"2023-03-14T19:02:08.457Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/T55zn2Mcm#c-H72EGx8uL","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"André Luis Zagatti Adorna","url":"https://daily.dev/azagatti","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/40201172?v=4"}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"As an aspiring full stack developer It really is very important to me to understand how this technologies work and this article just did the work of telling me what i need to know","datePublished":"2023-03-28T05:10:55.693Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/T55zn2Mcm#c-mqFLfvDla","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Charles Maverick Herrera","url":"https://daily.dev/cmh","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/90278189?v=4"}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Greatly structured article. Through it, I relived my own journey from SOAP to REST to GraphQL. I am still not on the bandwagon of gRPC/tRPC yet. But, I believe that it’s the next step in the evolution of these protocols.","datePublished":"2023-05-07T15:32:04.948Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/T55zn2Mcm#c-5xC2SkwaT","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Rahul Kumar","url":"https://daily.dev/devwise","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/v1683268027/avatars/avatar_lEKG10oeBepcREZbuuQrB.jpg"}}]}
```

