React Apollo is a great library, and it served as the primary inspiration for React Request. There are a few places where this library is different from React Apollo.
React Request is intended to be relatively lightweight, so it does not implement these features or props from React Apollo:
- Polling
- Optimistic responses
errorPolicypropnotifyOnNetworkStatusChangeprop
The reason for these omissions is that we believe that you can implement this features in your application, or in a wrapping component, without too much extra work. If you disagree, open an issue – we may very well be wrong!
React Apollo provides two components, one for Queries and the other for Mutations. React Request provides just the one. When working with HTTP without the GraphQL, it doesn't make as much sense to split out reads and writes from one another.
With Apollo, whether or not the request is made when the component mounts depends on if it is a mutation or a query. React Request looks at the HTTP method instead to determine if the request is likely a read request or a write request.
React Apollo normalizes your data, and makes it available through the store. This requires a definition of a "resource" or "entity," which is beyond the scope of this library.
If you want data normalization, you need two things:
- a location to place the normalized data in memory (typically called a store)
- a library or framework that defines what a resource or entity is
For instance, Redux can fulfill the role of item 1 while Redux Resource can fulfill the role of item 2.
Once you have those two things, you can use React Request to provide declarative requests (in fact, the official React bindings for Redux Resource will be built using React Request).