All-in on GraphQL: the future of app development at Shopify

Shopify's relentless push towards GraphQL is starting to feel like a never-ending treadmill for developers. While GraphQL certainly has its merits, the speed at which Shopify is deprecating established technologies and forcing migrations is becoming increasingly challenging for those of us trying to build stable, long-term solutions on their platform.

It seems like every few months there's a new announcement about some API or feature being deprecated, replaced, or fundamentally altered. From the retirement of the Ruby Script Editor to the overhaul of checkout customizations, from the introduction of Shopify Functions (with Rust, no less) to the constant evolution of APIs, it's becoming difficult to keep up without dedicating significant resources to simply maintaining existing functionality.

This latest move to make GraphQL mandatory for new apps by 2025 is just another step in a pattern that's becoming all too familiar. While I understand the desire to push forward with newer technologies, there's something to be said for stability and backwards compatibility. The lack of a proper LTS strategy for their GraphQL APIs means that what works today might be completely obsolete in just a couple of years, which is a tough pill to swallow for businesses trying to plan for the long term.

Add to this the recent price hikes, the restrictions on existing features like reducing the number of markets across plans, and the constant pressure to adapt to new paradigms, and it starts to feel like Shopify is prioritizing rapid change over the needs of its developer ecosystem. It's exhausting to constantly be playing catch-up, especially when these changes often don't bring immediate tangible benefits to our end users.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate Shopify's drive for innovation. But at some point, one has to wonder if the pace of change is actually hindering rather than helping the platform's growth and stability. It would be refreshing to see a more measured approach that balances forward momentum with the practical realities of maintaining complex e-commerce systems.