Choosing an Apollo Server package

Apollo Server 3 has been released, but is not yet installed by default. To install Apollo Server 3, specify @3.x after the name of the Apollo Server package you are installing (for example, npm install apollo-server@3.x).

Apollo Server is distributed as a collection of different packages for different environments and web frameworks. You can choose which package to use based on your project.

Which package should I use?

In most cases, you should get started with the "batteries-included" apollo-server package.

If your project has specific requirements, we recommend choosing a package based on this flowchart:

After you choose a package, see its basic usage.

All supported packages

Swapping out apollo-server

After you get up and running with the "batteries-included" apollo-server package, you might want to configure its HTTP behavior in ways that this package doesn't support. For example, you might want to run some middleware before processing GraphQL requests, or you might want to serve other endpoints from the same server.

In this case, we recommend you swap out apollo-server for apollo-server-express (unless you are confident that you want to use a different Node.js framework). This change requires only a few lines and has a minimal effect on your server's existing behavior (apollo-server uses apollo-server-express under the hood).

We recommend Express because it's the most popular Node.js web framework, and it integrates well with many other popular libraries. It does have its limitations (for example, Express async support is not built around Promises and async functions), but backward incompatible changes to the framework are rarer than in newer libraries.

Example

Let's say our apollo-server implementation uses the following code:

import { ApolloServer } from 'apollo-server';

async function startApolloServer(typeDefs, resolvers) {
  const server = new ApolloServer({ typeDefs, resolvers });
  const { url } = await server.listen();
  console.log(`🚀 Server ready at ${url}`);
}

To swap this out for apollo-server-express, we first install the following required packages:

npm install apollo-server-express@3.x express graphql

We can (and should) also uninstall apollo-server.

Next, we can modify our code to match the following:

import { ApolloServer } from 'apollo-server-express';
import express from 'express';

async function startApolloServer(typeDefs, resolvers) {

  // Same ApolloServer initialization as before
  const server = new ApolloServer({ typeDefs, resolvers });

  // Required logic for integrating with Express
  await server.start();
  const app = express();
  server.applyMiddleware({
     app,

     // By default, apollo-server hosts its GraphQL endpoint at the
     // server root. However, *other* Apollo Server packages host it at
     // /graphql. Optionally provide this to match apollo-server.
     path: '/'
  });

  // Modified server startup
  await new Promise(resolve => app.listen({ port: 4000 }, resolve));
  console.log(`🚀 Server ready at http://localhost:4000${server.graphqlPath}`);
}

Handling server shutdown

The apollo-server package does provide one feature that isn't straightforward to implement with other packages: because apollo-server handles making its HTTP server listen for requests, its stop method handles stopping the HTTP server. This means it can make sure to stop accepting new requests before it begins to shut down the machinery that processes GraphQL operations.

If you want this behavior in another package, you need to make sure to stop your web server before calling stop() on your ApolloServer instance. This can be challenging if stop is being called due to the signal handlers that Apollo Server installs by default.

We intend to improve this behavior discrepancy, as described in this GitHub issue.

Package conventions

Each Apollo Server package exports an ApolloServer class. The APIs for these classes are similar but not identical.

All Apollo Server packages depend on apollo-server-core, which contains the code that's shared by all integrations. Certain symbols, such as built-in plugins, are imported directly from apollo-server-core instead of from a particular package.

All Apollo Server packages (and apollo-server-core) are published to npm with the same version number, even if certain packages have no changes for a particular version. This makes it more straightforward to discuss a particular version of Apollo Server without needing to specify a package name.

Certain support libraries (such as apollo-server-caching, apollo-server-types, and apollo-server-plugin-base) use their own versioning and are published only when they change or one of their dependencies changes.

Common options

Most Apollo Server packages require calling a method named applyMiddleware, getMiddleware, or createHandler (depending on the package). These methods accept a (mostly) common set of options (not every package accepts every option).

For descriptions of these options, see the API reference.

The set of common options supported by each package is listed under Basic usage.

Basic usage

The sections below demonstrate how to initialize an ApolloServer instance with each package. More details are available in each package's README.

Each section also lists the options supported by each package's applyMiddleware or getMiddleware or createHandler function. Learn more about how these options work in the ApolloServer API reference.

apollo-server

apollo-server is the "batteries-included" Apollo Server package. It enables you to spin up a GraphQL server without thinking about web frameworks or URLs or middleware, and its main entry point (listen) is an async function instead of a callback-based function.

npm install apollo-server@3.x graphql

import { ApolloServer } from 'apollo-server';

async function startApolloServer(typeDefs, resolvers) {
  const server = new ApolloServer({ typeDefs, resolvers });
  const { url } = await server.listen();
  console.log(`🚀 Server ready at ${url}`);
}

Although apollo-server helps you get started quickly, you can't configure its behavior as much as you can other Apollo Server packages. For example, you can't serve other endpoints from the same HTTP server.

If you want to do something with your server that isn't supported by apollo-server, you can swap to apollo-server-express.

apollo-server-express

apollo-server-express is the Apollo Server package for Express, the most popular Node.js web framework. It enables you to attach a GraphQL server to an existing Express server.

apollo-server uses apollo-server-express under the hood. If you start with apollo-server and later need to modify how it serves over HTTP, you can swap apollo-server to apollo-server-express.

The following example is roughly equivalent to the apollo-server example above.

npm install apollo-server-express@3.x express graphql

import { ApolloServer } from 'apollo-server-express';
import express from 'express';

async function startApolloServer(typeDefs, resolvers) {
  const server = new ApolloServer({ typeDefs, resolvers });
  await server.start();
  const app = express();
  server.applyMiddleware({ app });
  await new Promise(resolve => app.listen({ port: 4000 }, resolve));
  console.log(`🚀 Server ready at http://localhost:4000${server.graphqlPath}`);
}

You must await server.start() before calling server.applyMiddleware. You can add other middleware to app before or after calling applyMiddleware.

You can call server.getMiddleware instead of server.applyMiddleware if you want to do something with the middleware function besides apply it directly to your app. (server.applyMiddleware({ app, ...rest }) is shorthand for app.use(server.getMiddleware(rest)).)

applyMiddleware (along with getMiddleware) accepts the following common options:

• path
• cors
• bodyParserConfig
• onHealthCheck
• disableHealthCheck

apollo-server-fastify

apollo-server-fastify is the GraphQL server for Fastify, a Node.js web framework. Apollo Server 3 supports Fastify v3.

The following example is roughly equivalent to the apollo-server example above.

$ npm install apollo-server-fastify@3.x fastify graphql

import { ApolloServer } from 'apollo-server-fastify';
import fastify from 'fastify';

async function startApolloServer(typeDefs, resolvers) {
  const server = new ApolloServer({ typeDefs, resolvers });
  await server.start();
  const app = fastify();
  app.register(server.createHandler());
  await app.listen(4000);
  console.log(`🚀 Server ready at http://localhost:4000${server.graphqlPath}`);
}

You must await server.start() before calling server.createHandler. You can call other functions on app before or after calling createHandler.

createHandler accepts the following common options:

• path
• cors
• onHealthCheck
• disableHealthCheck

apollo-server-hapi

apollo-server-hapi is the GraphQL server for hapi, a Node.js web framework. Apollo Server 3 is only tested with @hapi/hapi v20.1.2 and later (the minimum version that supports Node.js 16).

The following example is roughly equivalent to the apollo-server example above.

$ npm install apollo-server-hapi@3.x @hapi/hapi graphql

import { ApolloServer } from 'apollo-server-hapi';
import Hapi from '@hapi/hapi';

async function startApolloServer(typeDefs, resolvers) {
  const server = new ApolloServer({ typeDefs, resolvers });
  await server.start();
  const app = new Hapi.server({
    port: 4000
  });
  await server.applyMiddleware({
    app,
  });
  await app.start();
}

You must await server.start() before calling server.applyMiddleware. You can call other functions on app before or after calling applyMiddleware.

applyMiddleware accepts the following common options:

• path
• route
• cors
• onHealthCheck
• disableHealthCheck

apollo-server-koa

apollo-server-koa is the GraphQL server for Koa, a Node.js web framework.

The following example is roughly equivalent to the apollo-server example above.

$ npm install apollo-server-koa@3.x koa graphql

import { ApolloServer } from 'apollo-server-koa';
import Koa from 'koa';

async function startApolloServer(typeDefs, resolvers) {
  const server = new ApolloServer({ typeDefs, resolvers });
  await server.start();
  const app = new Koa();
  server.applyMiddleware({ app });
  await new Promise(resolve => app.listen({ port: 4000 }, resolve));
  console.log(`🚀 Server ready at http://localhost:4000${server.graphqlPath}`);
  return { server, app };
}

You must await server.start() before calling server.applyMiddleware. You can call other functions on app before or after calling applyMiddleware.

You can call server.getMiddleware instead of server.applyMiddleware if you want to do something with the middleware function besides apply it directly to your app. (server.applyMiddleware({ app, ...rest }) is shorthand for app.use(server.getMiddleware(rest)).)

applyMiddleware (along with getMiddleware) accepts the following common options:

• path
• cors
• bodyParserConfig
• onHealthCheck
• disableHealthCheck

apollo-server-micro

apollo-server-micro is the GraphQL server for Micro, a Node.js web framework.

The following example is roughly equivalent to the apollo-server example above. You should put this code in a file called index.js in order for the micro CLI to find it.

$ npm install apollo-server-micro@3.x micro graphql

import { ApolloServer } from 'apollo-server-micro';

const server = new ApolloServer({ typeDefs, resolvers });

module.exports = server.start().then(() => server.createHandler());

Then run the web server with npx micro.

createHandler accepts the following common options:

• path
• onHealthCheck
• disableHealthCheck.

Note that apollo-server-micro does not have a built-in way of setting CORS headers.

apollo-server-lambda

apollo-server-lambda is the GraphQL server for AWS Lambda, Amazon's serverless compute service.

This package is a layer around apollo-server-express, which uses the @vendia/serverless-express package to translate Lambda events into Express requests. (This package is not related to the Serverless framework.) It supports API Gateway and ALB.

The following example is roughly equivalent to the apollo-server example above.

$ npm install apollo-server-lambda@3.x graphql

import { ApolloServer } from 'apollo-server-lambda';

const server = new ApolloServer({ typeDefs, resolvers });

exports.handler = server.createHandler();

For more details on using apollo-server-lambda, see the documentation on deploying to Lambda.

apollo-server-cloud-functions

apollo-server-cloud-functions is the GraphQL server for Cloud Functions, Google's serverless compute service.

Because the Cloud Functions Node.js runtime uses Express, apollo-server-cloud-functions is a layer around apollo-server-express.

The following example is roughly equivalent to the apollo-server example above.

$ npm install apollo-server-cloud-functions@3.x graphql

import { ApolloServer } from 'apollo-server-cloud-functions';

const server = new ApolloServer({ typeDefs, resolvers });

exports.handler = server.createHandler();

For more details on using apollo-server-cloud-functions, see the documentation on deploying to Cloud Functions.

apollo-server-azure-functions

apollo-server-azure-functions is the GraphQL server for Azure Functions, Microsoft's serverless compute service.

The following example is roughly equivalent to the apollo-server example above.

$ npm install apollo-server-azure-functions@3.x graphql

import { ApolloServer } from 'apollo-server-azure-functions';

const server = new ApolloServer({ typeDefs, resolvers });

exports.handler = server.createHandler();

For more details on using apollo-server-azure-functions, see the documentation on deploying to Azure Functions.

apollo-server-cloudflare

apollo-server-cloudflare is the GraphQL server for Cloudflare Workers. This package is experimental and is not actively supported by Apollo.

For more details on using Apollo Server with Cloudflare Workers, see the Apollo GraphQL Server Quickstart in the Cloudflare Workers documentation.