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EV routing API: GraphQL vs REST and what the difference means in practice

Newsroom

EV routing API: GraphQL vs REST and what the difference means in practice

Newsroom

EV routing API: GraphQL vs REST and what the difference means in practice

When developers evaluate EV routing APIs, the REST vs GraphQL question comes up quickly. Most routing APIs — Google, HERE, TomTom — use REST. Chargetrip uses GraphQL. For teams deciding which to integrate, the practical difference is worth understanding.

REST APIs define fixed endpoints that return fixed response structures. You call `/route` with your parameters, and the API returns everything it has about that route — all the fields, whether you need them or not. If you need different data for different parts of your application, you either parse and discard what you do not need, or the API provider creates separate endpoints for different use cases, which creates versioning and maintenance complexity.

GraphQL works differently. The client defines the query — specifying exactly which fields it wants in the response. The server returns exactly that, nothing more. One endpoint serves all use cases, with the query determining the response shape.

For EV routing specifically, this matters because a route response contains a lot of data: turn-by-turn geometry, state of charge at every waypoint, charging stop details, energy consumption per segment, cost estimates, station information, timing. Different parts of a fleet management platform need different subsets of this.

A dispatcher dashboard needs stop timing and charging stop locations, not turn-by-turn geometry. A driver navigation app needs turn-by-turn geometry and the charging stop waypoints not the energy consumption breakdown. A reporting layer needs consumption data and cost figures not geometry at all. With a REST API, all three consume the same large response. With Chargetrip's GraphQL API, each component requests exactly the fields it needs, reducing response payload and simplifying parsing.

For teams building multiple different views of routing data which most fleet management platforms do GraphQL means a single API integration serves all views. Adding a new field to one component's data needs is a query change, not an API version change or a new endpoint negotiation.

The mutation-and-subscribe pattern is worth noting specifically. Creating a route in Chargetrip is a GraphQL mutation that returns a route ID. The full route data which may take a few seconds to process now arrives via a websocket subscription. This means the calling application does not block waiting for the route to calculate. It subscribes to updates and receives the result when it is ready, keeping the interface responsive for the dispatcher or driver.

For developers who have only worked with REST, GraphQL has a short learning curve around query syntax. Most GraphQL APIs provide a schema explorer, Chargetrip includes one in the developer documentation, that makes the available fields and their types self-documenting. Once the pattern is familiar, most teams find it reduces rather than adds to integration complexity.

Start with the developer documentation, or explore the API overview.