The 13 Best GraphQL Tools For 2025

It's no secret that we love GraphQL at Hygraph. Over time, we see many GraphQL tools opening up new opportunities for developers, and that's why we keep updating this list every year to keep the best GraphQL tools at your fingertips.

Check out the list below if you are developing with GraphQL, and try them to make your development process more efficient.

1. Hygraph
2. GraphiQL 2.0
3. Stellate
4. Postman
5. GraphQL Mesh
6. Apollo Studio
7. GraphQL Voyager
8. GraphQL Code Generator
9. Insomnia
10. Altair GraphQL Client
11. GraphQL Editor
12. Prisma

13. WunderGraph

#1. Hygraph — all your content in one GraphQL API

Number one on our list has to be our very own Hygraph. We’re biased, but it’s been frequently featured on other lists, too, and here’s why.

Hygraph is the first GraphQL-native headless CMS that allows you to manage and distribute content globally, providing a single source of truth to efficiently scale your content. This means you can federate and unify fragmented data silos into one powerful GraphQL API, so that you can ship exceptional product experiences faster without backend resources.

In 2025, Hygraph offers built-in AI capabilities like AI Assist for content and an agentic approach to workflows. This means you can generate and personalize content faster than ever.

For example, you can use Hygraph’s AI agents to transform unstructured inputs into structured content, automate repetitive workload, or orchestrate multi-step workflows across teams. All these AI actions are governed and transparent, which follows Hygraph’s “velocity with governance” philosophy.

Although Hygraph’s free plan gets you only up to 3 seats, users say its paid plans are pretty cheap compared to competitors.

#2. GraphiQL 2.0 — making GraphQL easier

GraphiQL is the original GraphQL IDE, and the 2.0 release makes it better than ever. This is mostly thanks to a new plugin architecture and sleek interface with handy features like explorer and autocomplete.

Maintained by the GraphQL Foundation, GraphiQL brings the new era of data querying languages to the next level by providing the necessary interface for writing, validating, and testing GraphQL queries and mutations.

The tool gives you a clean workspace to write queries, explore schemas, and see results. More importantly, unlike the now-deprecated GraphQL Playground, GraphiQL is actively maintained and secure.

Lightweight and open-source, GraphiQL 2.0 is the go-to GraphQL sandbox for many teams. One user said he uses GraphiQL because it’s as simple as it gets and has everything he needs for composing daily queries.

#3. Stellate — streamline your GraphQL caching

Formerly known as GraphCDN, Stellate offers GraphQL Edge Platform solutions that optimize and secure GraphQL APIs at the computing edge. It acts as a smart proxy or gateway for GraphQL, running at the edge to handle requests faster, more securely, and more cost-effectively.

Edge caching is one of its most popular features among developers (as well as one of the most popular GraphQL tools in our 2024 State of GraphQL Report). It allows you to speed up performance, reduce cloud costs, and prevent downtime by offloading repetitive traffic.

Stellate’s caching layer is globally distributed, so repeated queries are served in microseconds from edge servers — a lifesaver in times when real-time apps demand instant data.

#4. Postman — AI-ready GraphQL APIs

Postman isn’t just for REST anymore — in 2025, this all-in-one API platform has a dedicated GraphQL client that can examine your schema from a URL, offer a friendly schema explorer, and autocomplete your queries.

The client comes with all the usual Postman niceties like environment variables and collaboration. Its built-in AI assistant called “Postbot” can even generate test scripts or help debug GraphQL calls.

With Postman, you can conveniently handle REST and GraphQL side-by-side, although some power users feel it’s missing deeper in-app schema documentation like in GraphiQL.

#5. Prisma - build your GraphQL server with ease

GraphQL Mesh is an open-source framework you can use to turn almost any data source into a unified GraphQL API, regardless of their underlying technology or protocol. Whether it’s REST endpoints, databases, or gRPC, Mesh can wrap them all by generating a GraphQL schema on the go.

You can use Mesh to avoid writing tons of glue code, for example, when bridging legacy systems or third-party APIs. Maintained by The Guild, Mesh today comes with plugins for transformations, caching, and security. This does add some complexity, but if you need to unite diverse APIs into one graph, Mesh is a solution worth checking out.

#6. Apollo Studio — unify GraphQL across apps and services

Apollo Studio is a cloud platform for managing and developing GraphQL APIs and data graphs at scale. It provides a unified hub for schemas, performance monitoring, and collaboration.

In 2025, Apollo is leading the charge into the AI arena. Its MCP (Model-Controlled Procedure) Server allows LLM-based agents to safely query GraphQL APIs. This means your graph can feed real-time data to AI assistants with proper governance. Developers appreciate Apollo’s reliable out-of-box caching, which makes it easy to build fast and performant applications.

#7. GraphQL Voyager — visualize your GraphQL

GraphQL Voyager visualizes your GraphQL schema as an interactive graph, and it’s a great tool when designing or discussing your data model.

Voyager auto-generates a schema map where you can see types and their relationships at any time. It’s a great way for juniors or non-developers to quickly grasp the structure of a GraphQL API. With around 6,000 GitHub stars, Voyager has proven its value in the community.

This GraphQL tool is read-only and purely for visualization, so there’s no risk of someone changing data while exploring.

#8. GraphQL Code Generator — generate TypeScript code instantly

GraphQL Code Generator is an excellent choice for eliminating boilerplate coding. Maintained by The Guild, this tool scans your schema and queries to deliver ready-to-use code (TypeScript types, React hooks, etc.) tailored to your stack. There’s no need to manually write types for your GraphQL data, which saves time and prevents inconsistencies as your schema evolves.

Code Generator supports a wide array of plugins, keeping pace with new frameworks and needs. Thanks to end-to-end type safety for your entire application, the tool automatically creates TypeScript types from your schema and operations. This helps catch errors at build-time instead of runtime.

#9. Insomnia — user-friendly GraphQL API builder

Insomnia is an open-source desktop application that you can use to send and test HTTP, GraphQL, and other API requests. Apart from a forever-free pricing plan, users love its minimalist UI that packs powerful features.

For GraphQL, Insomnia offers intelligent query auto-completion, schema introspection, and environment variable support to manage different configurations. It also supports syncing queries and environments for easy team collaboration.

And while many stick with Insomnia for its versatility (one tool for REST and GraphQL) and its growing library of plugins, some users believe that the platform has become bloated with features, and move to faster alternatives, such as Postman.

#10. Altair GraphQL Client — debug your GraphQL APIs with ease

Altair GraphQL Client is a free, open-source GraphQL IDE with a rich feature set and appealing interface. It offers a polished UI for writing and testing queries, with tweaks like query history, environment variables, and automated headers.

Expert users appreciate advanced features such as pre-request scripting for auth tokens and the ability to compress queries. In just a few years, Altair has grown its fan base significantly — over 5,000 GitHub stars.

Altair is a popular choice because it focuses purely on GraphQL, cutting the bloat of heavier API tools. You can work on multiple queries in different windows, set headers, download responses, reload docs, etc. It also comes as an extension for Firefox and Chrome, and a Mac, Linux, and Windows app.

#11. GraphQL Editor — create backends from GraphQL schema

GraphQL Editor is a visual IDE for schema design. It lets you create and visualize a GraphQL schema using a drag-and-drop interface, and even generate a fake backend for instant testing.

By 2025, GraphQL Editor has added collaboration features like team schema libraries and real-time editing for groups. It’s a great choice for prototyping and brainstorming, and you can even deploy a mock GraphQL server straight from your design to try it out.

Although you’ll eventually implement the schema in code, GraphQL Editor streamlines the early design phase and gets everyone on the same page.

#12. Prisma — build your GraphQL server with ease

Prisma is a TypeScript-based ORM (Object-Relational Mapper) for building backends. It can auto-generate a GraphQL-friendly API layer on your database, saving you from writing tons of boilerplate resolvers.

Developers love Prisma’s strongly-typed client, which “makes Sequelize look like a joke” and how smoothly it integrates with frameworks like Next.js and Redwood.

In 2025, Prisma offers reliable migrations, flexible query APIs, and a growing ecosystem. Some users caution that very large projects can hit performance snags, but for most teams, Prisma significantly accelerates development.

#13. WunderGraph — AI take on GraphQL backends

WunderGraph is an open-source API developer platform that simplifies the development of full-stack applications by acting as a unified API gateway and GraphQL layer.

It auto-generates a secure GraphQL gateway for your data sources, which makes it a direct competitor to Apollo. The biggest differentiator, however, is WunderGraph’s new Cosmo platform that uses AI to integrate non-GraphQL services.

Cosmo Connect uses AI tools to automatically integrate REST, SOAP, and gRPC APIs into GraphQL Federation without costly rewrites. Basically, it lets AI handle the tedious parts of wiring up legacy APIs.

WunderGraph also focuses on type safety and built-in edge caching for performance. The community may be smaller than Apollo’s, but early adopters praise how it simplifies complex setups.

#GraphQL adoption is growing

The number of major international companies incorporating GraphQL is growing - Shopify, Github, Medium, Docker, Twitter, Airbnb, and Paypal are just some of the mega-enterprises which have implemented GraphQL into their tech stack. Many of these tools, which began as niche products, have now seen wide adoption across the GraphQL Community. The speed of adoption of GraphQL in major enterprises and growing companies demonstrates that GraphQL is here to stay and will not be wiped out anytime soon.