GraphQL: The hidden Champion of Postman's State of the API 2021
Note
This article is based on Postman’s 2021 State of the API report. The data reflects trends at that time and may not represent the current API landscape.
State of GraphQL Federation 2026
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GraphQL shows strong growth, has the largest percentage of users who love it and is the only API Specification amongst future technologies that Developers are Excited about.
| Specification | Use it |
|---|---|
| JSON Schema | 76% |
| Swagger 2.0 | 44% |
| OpenAPI 3.0 | 28% |
| GraphQL | 22.5% |
| Specification | Use it | Use it and love It |
|---|---|---|
| JSON Schema | 77% | 27% |
| Swagger 2.0 | 54% | 16% |
| OpenAPI 3.0 | 39% | 12% |
| GraphQL | 31% | 10% |
| Specification | Growth |
|---|---|
| JSON Schema | +1.3% |
| Swagger 2.0 | +22.7% |
| OpenAPI 3.0 | +39.2% |
| GraphQL | +34.7% |
| Specification | Lovers |
|---|---|
| JSON Schema | 35% |
| Swagger 2.0 | 30% |
| OpenAPI 3.0 | 30% |
| GraphQL | 32% |
| Specification | Excited about |
|---|---|
| Microservices | 47% |
| Kubernetes | 44% |
| Containers | 43% |
| Serverless Architecture | 39% |
| GraphQL | 33% |
| HTTP/2 | 25% |
| Specification | Lovers |
|---|---|
| Microservices | 58% |
| Kubernetes | 50% |
| Containers | 46% |
| Serverless Architecture | 44% |
| GraphQL | 35% |
| HTTP/2 | 33% |
| Specification | Use it | Use it and love It |
|---|---|---|
| JSON Schema | 80% | 30% |
| Swagger 2.0 | 60% | 20% |
| OpenAPI 3.0 | 51% | 20% |
| GraphQL | 44% | 18% |
CEO & Co-Founder at WunderGraph
Jens Neuse is the CEO and one of the co-founders of WunderGraph, where he builds scalable API infrastructure with a focus on federation and AI-native workflows. Formerly an engineer at Tyk Technologies, he created graphql-go-tools, now widely used in the open source community. Jens designed the original WunderGraph SDK and led its evolution into Cosmo, an open-source federation platform adopted by global enterprises. He writes about systems design, organizational structure, and how Conway's Law shapes API architecture.
