docs(blog): graphql conf 2025 (#6957)

Author: n1ru4l

packages/web/docs/src/app/blog/(posts)/graphql-conf-2025-recap/guild-booth.jpg

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+---
+title: GraphQL Conf 2025 Recap
+authors: uri
+tags: [graphql]
+date: 2025-09-11
+description:
+  'Our recap of GraphQL Conf 2025 in Amsterdam: 10 years of GraphQL, new spec release, Hive Router
+  launch, Codegen update, and key community takeaways.'
+---
+
+Another year, another successful GraphQL Conference — this time hosted for the first time in the
+Netherlands, in Amsterdam! The community came together once again, this time to celebrate **10 years
+of GraphQL**.
+
+Over three packed days, attendees enjoyed workshops on real-world solutions, case studies from
+companies betting big on GraphQL, and deep, exciting talks from industry veterans and thought
+leaders. Everyone who cares about GraphQL and its ecosystem was there.
+
+![The Guild Team At GraphQL Conf](./guild-team.jpg)
+
+> Picture by [Taz Singh](https://x.com/tazsingh)
+
+From FAANG engineers sharing their experiences at scale, to businesses of all sizes presenting their
+success stories, to GraphQL Working Group members tackling complex problems face-to-face—it was a
+program that could make any GraphQL enthusiast happy.
+
+As always, it was a great opportunity to finally meet the people behind those outdated GitHub
+avatars—the driving force of this vibrant community.
+
+We exchanged ideas, learned about different ways GraphQL is used, and saw firsthand a diverse and
+healthy ecosystem where many solutions and vendors can thrive — whether through a federated approach
+or a monolith.
+
+And of course, there were a ton of announcements!
+
+## Big Announcements
+
+- 🎉 After years, the brand-new [graphql.org](http://graphql.org/) website was launched at the
+  conference—which we were proud to help build.
+- 📜 A [new GraphQL Spec version](https://graphql.org/blog/2025-09-08-september-edition/) is here!
+  Countless contributors made this possible. Among the quality-of-life improvements (like schema
+  coordinates and document descriptions), the highlight is the `@oneOf` directive for input
+  objects—finally enabling input unions. Huge milestone!
+- 🚀 We launched [Hive Router](https://the-guild.dev/graphql/hive/blog/welcome-hive-router), our
+  high-performance federation router built in Rust. We even published
+  [a benchmark comparing all available solutions](https://the-guild.dev/graphql/hive/federation-gateway-performance).
+  The feedback has been phenomenal, and we’re excited to polish it for production use.
+- ⚡ We also released [Hive Gateway v2](https://the-guild.dev/graphql/hive/blog/hive-gateway-v2),
+  our JavaScript federation gateway—packed with exciting new features like
+  [improved OpenTelemetry support](https://the-guild.dev/graphql/hive/blog/opentelemetry-gateway-v2),
+  event-driven federated subscriptions (EDFS), better logging, and intelligent request
+  deduplication. The
+  [extensive workshop](https://graphql.org/conf/2025/schedule/6fbc71a3ad13189339d753cb078ec781) led
+  by Denis Badurina and Arda Tanrıkulu showcased how feature-rich, mature, and easy it is to build a
+  federation gateway for your subgraphs.
+- 🛠️ Finally, we shipped a
+  [new major version of GraphQL Code Generator](https://the-guild.dev/graphql/hive/blog/graphql-code-generator-update-202509),
+  massively improving the developer experience for building federated GraphQL servers.
+  [Eddy Nguyen shared how to use the server preset in a session at the conference](https://graphql.org/conf/2025/schedule/0281a72e8e35f07c74a5815c42c64a02).
+
+We had a blast at our booth — diving into technical discussions, exchanging ideas, or just chatting
+and having fun with the amazing developers who came by.
+
+![The Guild Team At GraphQL Conf](./guild-booth.jpg)
+
+## Key Takeaways
+
+Let's highlight and reflect a bit on the main takeaways from talking with various folks and
+attending sessions and workshops loaded with knowledge.
+
+### Federation is going strong
+
+Federation adoption keeps accelerating.
+
+What used to be a space with a single dominant router now has a thriving ecosystem of open-source,
+feature-rich, high-performance alternatives.
+
+Our embeddable query planner will hopefully help teams bridge the gap and skip many of the
+[pitfalls we encountered while implementing federation](https://graphql.org/conf/2025/schedule/1a0475a575803503fce927f22dd1beae).
+
+Vendors such as Apollo, Grafbase, and ourselves were present, allowing people to get an overview of
+the most widely adopted solutions today.
+
+Major companies are also investing in building and open-sourcing their own solutions, such as the
+Kotlin implementation
+[presented by Expedia in their session](https://graphql.org/conf/2025/schedule/cb0e7d61d4055d199e7b9040617c2f88/).
+
+Companies like Booking.com
+[shared their migration story from a monolith to federation](https://graphql.org/conf/2025/schedule/0296c34928a818353f1568775e47b47a).
+
+Federation is no longer tied to a single language — developers from many ecosystems are federating
+in the languages they love.
+
+The Composite Schema Working Group is steadily making progress on creating a shared specification
+that vendors and federation users can agree on and build upon, leading us to an interoperable
+future. Michael gave us a
+[live demo of what to expect in the future](https://graphql.org/conf/2025/schedule/3b8701f24da2cf5456ffd5b793836ace).
+
+On top of that, we also saw innovation from companies like Airbnb that
+[reimagine building monoliths in a federated way with Viaduct](https://graphql.org/conf/2025/schedule/eb8343e5935fbfccaaacf983ef84ab49).
+
+### GraphQL Fragments in the spotlight
+
+This year, **GraphQL Fragments finally had their moment in the spotlight**.
+
+> “They are for describing UI component data dependencies, not for re-use!”
+
+Teams are increasingly adopting fragments to build reusable UI components, and lots of best
+practices were shared. While Meta developers have long relied on this approach — as showcased by
+Janette Cheng in her session on
+[“How to use Fragments”](https://graphql.org/conf/2025/schedule/95c83506420d9a9a3a971a8802ba96f8) —
+we’re thrilled to see it gain traction across the broader community. It was great to hear other
+companies’ success stories about scaling UI and components with Fragments, such as Gabriel
+Cura-Castro’s session
+[“Building Federated Component Systems That Scale”](https://graphql.org/conf/2025/schedule/4d43e71c77159a2cdfea61b076428a8f),
+which also brought in the federation aspect.
+
+With Relay, Apollo, and the
+[GraphQL Code Generator client preset](https://the-guild.dev/graphql/hive/blog/unleash-the-power-of-fragments-with-graphql-codegen),
+developers now have powerful tooling to build efficient, reusable UI components.
+
+### Fullstack Innovation
+
+We all know the veteran clients: **Relay** and **Apollo**. Relay showed off new features solving
+problems at Meta scale, such as
+[how to roll out strict error handling](https://graphql.org/conf/2025/schedule/bca05d46cfc531aeb3cd84927f6483c1).
+Apollo is
+[catching up on feature parity with proven patterns like fragment data masking](https://graphql.org/conf/2025/schedule/efe5aee612551209ba413d57d3ddbb4e).
+
+But fresh projects are also pushing boundaries:
+
+- **Houdini GraphQL** has proven itself in the Svelte community, offering an opinionated, end-to-end
+  fullstack GraphQL experience.
+  [Alec Aivazis was on stage to share the concepts behind it](https://graphql.org/conf/2025/schedule/dda1fbb70f8b5b73223a6e37a736e5bd).
+- **Isograph**, while more controversial, wowed the crowd with its bold ideas — even breaking some
+  established GraphQL syntax.
+  [Robert Balicki’s live demo of Isograph](https://graphql.org/conf/2025/schedule/a2bb7f46355a46dcab47d654c9ccbe4e)
+  was hands-down one of the most entertaining and impressive moments of the conference.
+- **Graffle**, a modular and type-safe GraphQL client, was presented in a
+  [hands-on demonstration by Jason](https://graphql.org/conf/2025/schedule/ce3c04db5c598ba5451fcd71df4849ee).
+
+It’s inspiring to see new projects experimenting and gaining adoption.
+
+### Errors and Nullability
+
+The Nullability Working Group is making big strides in improving error handling.
+
+Right now, when you see `null` in a GraphQL response, it could mean:
+
+- ✅ A field is _intentionally_ null (e.g., `middleName` doesn’t exist).
+- ❌ Something went wrong (resolver error, permissions issue, downstream failure, etc.).
+
+This ambiguity has long been a pain point. Removing it will make GraphQL responses clearer, safer,
+and easier to work with — for both API designers and client developers.
+
+Different approaches were discussed, and we’re eager to see how community feedback will shape the
+spec.
+
+Working group veteran Benjie shared
+[how we can further improve in this space](https://graphql.org/conf/2025/schedule/4ed67778faddda05ce0a191e525d43ee).
+
+In addition, Jeff showcased how to model expected errors as part of the GraphQL schema and
+[demonstrated best practices and approaches for designing scalable, future-proof APIs](https://graphql.org/conf/2025/schedule/9e816cd378c96b466658842ef0900183).
+
+### Public GraphQL APIs
+
+Everyone is now using persisted documents or trusted documents, with the exception of those
+adventurous teams tackling the challenge of launching public GraphQL APIs. Whether it is Buffer
+[rebuilding their public API in GraphQL](https://graphql.org/conf/2025/schedule/e6262da79f7c90fd01a2a13570d6b6bc),
+[monday.com tackling the challenge of documenting their API with AI tools](https://graphql.org/conf/2025/schedule/ed1b84b384c39fd16cbba908aeeda283),
+or us building and releasing our own
+[GraphQL API for our Schema Registry and Federation Platform product Hive Console](https://graphql.org/conf/2025/schedule/11ee2487ca4b81120d1d7218b13f2003),
+more and more people are exploring GraphQL as a tool and entry point for third-party API consumers
+and businesses.
+
+Tools like
+[Pollen help bridge the gap between introspection documentation provided by tools like GraphiQL and handcrafted documentation](https://graphql.org/conf/2025/schedule/6c9b846e538e001af3db938d771d1178).
+The need for better tooling to monitor and analyze API usage is becoming more evident.
+
+New problems are also emerging, such as how to deprecate and remove unused fields over time. In this
+space, schema registries and analytics platforms like our Hive Console can unleash their true
+potential. Rick Bijkerk showcased
+[how they automated schema cleanup using Hive Console in his lightning talk](https://graphql.org/conf/2025/schedule/b22c4cbb4356649d15129696322b6777).
+
+We are super excited to see more organizations joining the ranks of GitHub, Shopify, and monday.com
+in the public GraphQL API space.
+
+## Closing Thoughts
+
+What a ride!
+
+![Workshop](./relay-workshop.jpg)
+
+As always, we’re grateful to be part of this amazing community. GraphQL Conf 2025 was a fantastic
+celebration of 10 years of progress, collaboration, and innovation.
+
+We can’t wait to see everyone again next year!