GraphQL is a query language and runtime for APIs, developed by Facebook, that allows clients to specify exactly what data they need in a single request. Unlike REST APIs that return fixed response shapes per endpoint, a GraphQL API exposes a single endpoint that accepts declarative queries — clients define the fields, nesting, and relationships they want and receive precisely that data structure in response.
For web scraping, GraphQL APIs are a valuable target when a site uses one as its data backend. Many modern SPAs (Instagram, Twitter/X, Shopify, GitHub) use GraphQL to power their frontends. Intercepting the GraphQL queries made by the page's JavaScript reveals the API endpoint and the query structure — which can then be replicated directly to retrieve structured data without any HTML parsing.
The advantages of scraping GraphQL endpoints versus scraping rendered HTML include: consistently typed, schema-validated responses; the ability to request only needed fields; introspection capabilities that reveal the full API schema; and resilience against frontend redesigns. The challenges include schema introspection being disabled on some endpoints and authentication requirements. AlterLab's network interception mode can capture GraphQL responses during page rendering.