Shopify’s REST API deprecation & GraphQL migration: A guide for merchants and developers
Shopify is consistently evolving to improve its platform for developers and merchants alike. One of their most significant shifts has been the gradual deprecation of its REST APIs for app development, in favour of GraphQL.
GraphQL is now Shopify’s definitive API, which will lead to better performance, efficiency, and scalability.
Understanding this change is crucial to keeping your storefront, applications, and integrations up to date and running smoothly for your customers or app users. We’ll break down everything you need to know about Shopify’s migration from REST to GraphQL, what it means for you, and what benefits it can bring to your products and experiences on Shopify.
Shopify’s REST API deprecation timeline: Key dates and updates announced
First, here are the key dates and required updates that Shopify has announced so far:
New apps
Shopify marked its REST Admin API as a legacy API as of October 1, 2024, which means all new apps and integrations must be built with its GraphQL Admin API.
Public app migration
All public apps built on deprecated GraphQL Admin API fields (2024-01 or earlier) or REST Admin API endpoints for products and variants must migrate to the new GraphQL product APIs by February 1, 2025.
Custom app migration
- Custom apps built on deprecated GraphQL Admin API fields (2024-01 or earlier) must migrate to the new GraphQL product APIs by April 1, 2025.
- Custom apps built on REST Admin API endpoints for products and variants must also migrate to the new GraphQL product APIs if they need to support more than 100 variants.
- Custom apps built on REST APIs that don’t need to support more than 100 variants can continue using the deprecated product APIs, but developers should be aware that they won’t receive new features or support, and will be unable to increase their variant limit past 100.
⚠️ It’s important to note that Shopify has deprecated parts of its REST API and will only support the GraphQL API in the long term (with exact timelines to be announced).
Regardless of whether an app must move to GraphQL, it’s in the developer’s best interests — as well as the best interests of any merchants relying on the app — to make the switch to ensure they are accessing new features, that they are fully supported by Shopify, and that they don’t have to scramble to migrate if Shopify announces that a timeline for fully sunsetting the REST API.
Do you need help migrating an app to Shopify’s GraphQL API?
We are Shopify app builders and we can help.
What is Shopify’s REST API?
A REST (representational state transfer) API is an architectural style for designing networked applications. It uses HTTP requests to access and manipulate data, following a set of constraints that allow for scalable and flexible web services.
Shopify's REST Admin API used to be the primary method to work with store data on the platform, including orders, products, and customer data. This API made it possible for third-party developers to build apps and integration to enhance Shopify admin and stores, allowing for different functionalities and automations.
Why is Shopify deprecating its REST API?
REST APIs have certain limitations that hinder their scalability and efficiency. Some of the biggest drawbacks include:
Fetching too much or too little data
REST APIs return fixed sets of data, sometimes providing too much unnecessary information (or not enough, requiring additional requests).
When you make a call to Shopify’s REST API, its limited resource filtering returns almost everything about the customer, leaving you to filter out the data you need. You may only want the first two addresses a customer uses, but a REST API will still return all of them.
Fetching too much data can also result in slower response times due to denser payloads and increased processing requirements.
Performance
REST APIs work with one resource at a time and often require multiple calls to fetch related data, which can lead to increased latency and slower performance.
Inefficiency in complex queries
Fetching related data using REST often results in numerous API calls, making applications inefficient and harder to scale.
Eating up rate limits
Numerous REST API calls can quickly reach API rate limits, causing disruptions to app performance.
Shopify’s REST Admin API supports a limit of 40 requests per app per store per minute, replenishing at a rate of 2 requests per second. The limit is increased by a factor of 10 for Shopify Plus stores.
Data structure limitations
With REST APIs, you don't know what the data structure is going to be unless you read the documentation’s example responses, or you test to see what responses you’ll get.
Errors or unpredictable results
Incorrect data formatting can lead to errors or unpredictable results in REST APIs due to their weaker typing and reliance on endpoint-specific validation. Since REST does not enforce strict type validation at the API level, it depends on the backend logic of the API provider to handle data consistency.
Additionally, REST error handling is typically limited to HTTP status codes, which can make diagnosing issues more challenging. Developers must rely on API documentation and logging to troubleshoot errors effectively, as REST does not always provide detailed contextual error responses.
Changes go out to all developers
With REST, Shopify has no way of knowing which specific fields an app is using within an endpoint. When they make changes or deprecations, they announce broader updates rather than detailing specific field modifications. Developers are responsible for monitoring API documentation and ensuring their apps remain compatible with any updates.
External documentation can be out of sync
The majority of REST APIs lack embedded metadata and rely on external documentation, which makes the information less accessible and reliable for developers.
To address these issues, Shopify has chosen to fully transition to GraphQL, which offers improved performance, scalability, and more flexible data querying capabilities.
What is GraphQL and what advantages does it offer?
GraphQL is a powerful query language for APIs that allows clients to request only the data they need, reducing unnecessary data transfers and improving efficiency.
Shopify’s GraphQL API offers several benefits over REST:
- Fewer API calls: Developers can query multiple objects and manipulate data across the platform in a single request, instead of making multiple calls.
- Reduced data transfer: Specifying the exact fields required prevents over-fetching of unnecessary data.
- Improved performance and scaling: With less requests needed, GraphQL helps applications perform better and scale more efficiently.
- More flexible and intuitive: Unlike REST, where different endpoints return predefined data structures, GraphQL allows developers to structure queries dynamically based on their needs.
- Better developer experience: With a strongly typed schema, Shopify’s GraphQL API provides autocompletion and better error handling, making development smoother and improving code quality.
- Easier data processing: The query structure directly dictates the response structure, making it easier to handle and process data.
- Flexible pagination and rate limits: GraphQL provides more control over pagination and rate limits, though developers still need to manage query complexity effectively.
- Advanced documentation and testing: GraphQL APIs are self-documenting and developers can directly query its scheme using its introspection feature. Testing queries is easy with its tools like GraphiQL and the dev. assistant.
- More focused updates: It’s easier for Shopify to develop and support their APIs and related resources when they know what fields each app is using.
How the move to GraphQL APIs affects Shopify merchants
If merchants are reliant on third-party apps for their storefronts, they may face disruptions if the apps haven’t been updated to GraphQL APIs before REST APIs are fully deprecated.
Unless they have built their own custom apps and have to work with their developers to migrate them, merchants can’t directly fix issues with their third-party apps. What they can do is proactively contact the owner or support team to ensure the app is up to date or what the update roadmap will look like.
The key is doing your research, looking at an app’s documentation and FAQs, asking more questions if needed — anything to ensure you don’t end up in a position where one of the apps you rely on is not supported. If you’re considering a new app or you’re in the process of replatforming to Shopify, make sure any app you may rely on will be updated before you commit to using it.
If merchants have developed their own custom apps, it is up to them to drive updates to their apps, either in-house or with Shopify partners they originally worked with to create the apps.
Are you a merchant or developer who needs support migrating apps to GraphQL? Let’s talk.
What developers should know about building with GraphQL APIs on Shopify
As Shopify goes all-in on GraphQL, app developers on the platform need to make sure they are making the necessary changes to their existing work, as well as get used to working with GraphQL going forward.
If you’re looking to brush up on GraphQL
- Check out Shopify’s support materials on using GraphQL
- Getting Started with GraphQL: Their video and blog post walk through tools you can use to get started and demonstrate how to make requests against a client’s store.
- About GraphQL: Check out the GraphQL section of this tutorial on Shopify’s app stack.
- Seek out other learning material
- Introduction to GraphQL: The GraphQL website is a great place to start!
If you are ready to start using GraphQL on Shopify
Here are the latest updates on Shopify's API development:
- Feature complete: All previously REST-based use cases can now be accomplished with GraphQL.
- Exclusive new features: GraphQL has support for 2,000 product variants and advanced capabilities such as Metaobjects.
- Performance improvements: Shopify has doubled the GraphQL rate limits and reduced the cost of queries using connections by 75%, going beyond REST’s capabilities.
- Developer experience: Shopify has provided a more familiar API environment to work in, and has introduced tools and resources to help you build.
- .dev assistant is an LLM-tool that helps with GraphQL queries and mutations.
- GraphQL is integrated into the CLI so you can test queries directly against development stores.
- You can also explore their improved GraphQL documentation.
If you need to migrate an existing Shopify app or custom app to GraphQL
Shopify public app builders or custom app owners should have received updates through their Shopify partner account and by email about these API changes and required updates.
Even with Shopify’s updates to their GraphQL APIs, migrating apps and extensions from REST to GraphQL can be complex. It requires significant recoding and adjustments for the differences in rate limits and query structures. Here is Shopify’s migration guide for GraphQL, which includes plenty of tutorials and resources to help you through this process.
As an example, GraphQL rate limits are based on calculated query costs, meaning you have to consider the cost of the requests over time (as opposed to REST, where you only need to think about the amount of queries over time). If you are looking for a lot of data, you may need to use multiple queries and queue them to work around the cost limit, and that means adding support for that in an existing app. Check out Shopify’s best practices on avoiding rate limit errors.
Though GraphQL app migration can seem daunting, the consequences of not upgrading include:
- Delisting of public apps from the Shopify App Store
- Warnings to users during the installation of unsupported public apps or custom apps
- Users being blocked from installing the app
It’s in the best interest of developers and merchants to ensure all applicable apps are updated, so as not to disrupt the app experience for users or storefront experience for customers.
How to migrate from Shopify’s REST API to GraphQL
If your application relies on Shopify’s REST API, now is the time to start your migration to GraphQL. Here’s a step-by-step guide to making the transition:
- Understand your app’s current API usage
- Identify all REST API calls in your application.
- Determine which endpoints are affected by deprecation.
- Map out the required data structures and queries.
- Learn the basics of GraphQL
- Familiarize yourself with GraphQL’s query syntax.
- Understand how to structure queries and handle responses.
- Explore Shopify’s GraphQL API documentation.
- Rebuild your app’s queries using GraphQL
- Start replacing REST API calls with equivalent GraphQL queries.
- Optimize queries to fetch only the necessary data in as few requests as possible.
- Test API responses to ensure data accuracy.
- Update your rate limiting strategy
- Familiarize yourself with how Shopify’s GraphQL API rate-limiting approach differs from REST.
- Optimize your queries to minimize unnecessary requests and stay within limits.
- Break up queries as needed for the size rate limit.
- Implement a fallback queue system as needed if rate limits are reached.
- Refactor your application
- Adjust your app’s logic to accommodate GraphQL’s response structure.
- Update error handling to align with GraphQL’s error responses.\
- Ensure caching and pagination strategies are optimized.
- Test and deploy
- Conduct thorough testing to ensure the new GraphQL implementation works correctly.
- Deploy changes incrementally to minimize disruptions.
- Monitor API usage and optimize queries as needed.
Recommendations and support
While REST API migration may seem daunting, taking proactive steps now will ensure you have the time to make a smooth transition and allow you to leverage the full power of GraphQL. The benefits of GraphQL far outweigh the challenges of migration, making it a worthwhile investment for the future.
Your next steps with GraphQL
- Merchants should research app compatibility on new or existing apps, and reach out to the developers for clarity on their migration plans.
- Developers should prioritize migrating to GraphQL using Shopify’s documentation and respecting their current deadlines. They should also anticipate that Shopify will eventually fully deprecate its REST APIs, and migrating is the only way to access full support and new features.
More questions about GraphQL and your Shopify apps?
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We work with top commerce brands as Shopify Platinum Partners, and we also build products internally for Shopify. We have extensive experience building public and custom apps and extensions across the platform.
