Netlify Graph: A faster way for teams to develop web apps with APIs

One of the founders of OneGraph here, happy to answer any questions or talk about ideas!<p>This is what we have been working on since the Netlify acquisition <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=29253069" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=29253069</a>. Still early days and in beta, but excited to see all the DX pieces coming together bit by bit!<p>When we did our original Launch HN (back in summer 2018! <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=17602951" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=17602951</a>) this was one of the primary use-cases we had in mind. GraphQL provides such a rich layer for API tooling, but bringing it all together from a developer&#x27;s point of view can be pretty challenging. Hopefully this spin on it (and the built-in integrations we&#x27;re rolling out for specific frameworks) should make it significantly easier.<p>Lots of plans (a pure vscode workflow is high on my personal wishlist), but it&#x27;s time to share the current state of things with all of you folks!

OT: Funny how this is never the problem I had. I’ve always had trouble with the bits on the screen, not connecting the bits behind it. Every time I see a new project that says “connect APIs real quick to your frontend” or “one click deploy database table don’t think about backend” I always think “but you’re skipping over the fun part!”<p>Congrats on the launch, this looks really neat.

Just finished an episode of Learn with Jason showing how to use this to build a small Spotify app using the Netlify Graph tooling: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.twitch.tv&#x2F;videos&#x2F;1299016321?t=0h25m21s" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.twitch.tv&#x2F;videos&#x2F;1299016321?t=0h25m21s</a> (the link starts at the first step of the new app and dives right into the experience)<p>Jason knew next to nothing about the current state of Netlify Graph (to keep the experience authentic), so it&#x27;s pretty fun to see his reactions.<p>Also, the app is live for anyone to use! <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;netlify-graph-nextjs.netlify.app&#x2F;SpotifySearchForm" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;netlify-graph-nextjs.netlify.app&#x2F;SpotifySearchForm</a>

From having maintained 60+ API integrations for a B2B business, I can see how Netlify Graph (or previously OneGraph) solves a real problem.<p>The initial integration is usually straightforward, but the maintanence of these seemingly simple API wrappers is what bites back in the long run.<p>With having lots of integrations, these are the usual failure points:<p>1. Teams find it hard to keep track of all the changelogs across APIs.<p>2. Failing at [1] means that API changes get noticed much later and having to cram the work into product development cycles.

this is the direction i&#x27;ve been wanting Netlify to go in for years! Netlify has done very well as an aggregator of frontend developers, and GraphQL is the perfect protocol to 1) build better tooling, which onegraph has a lot of ideas on, 2) commoditize their complements (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.joelonsoftware.com&#x2F;2002&#x2F;06&#x2F;12&#x2F;strategy-letter-v&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.joelonsoftware.com&#x2F;2002&#x2F;06&#x2F;12&#x2F;strategy-letter-v&#x2F;</a>).<p>i hope more updates keep coming (i want explorer in the UI! not the CLI!) but this is a positive start.

Can someone give some concrete example use cases for this? So you connect this to your Stripe or Spotify account and this lets your website visitors do something via client-side JavaScript?

Zapier on Steroids for programmers!<p>I like how Netlify went with a low-code approach that provides not only speed and flexibility, but also greatly helps with long-term maintenance. Web apps are now more connected and heterogenous than ever - there is a need to quickly and easily connect with various APIs. No-code falls short in providing performant and maintainable code bases. GraphQL-based tools could be the solution. Netlify seems to have taken the lead here. I only worry about potential vendor lock-in.<p>Congrats!

This looks interesting. I haven&#x27;t got a clue what netlify does though. That&#x27;s one truly useless homepage.

Now watch them add a custom datastore with authorizations a little while down the road and enjoy serverless bliss.

Is this free? Couldn’t find pricing info.