Differences between Sharepoint REST API and Microsoft Graph Sharepoint API

Question

I want to interact with Office365 Sharepoint sites, so I am trying to choose right API for this. There are different APIs for working with Sharepoint, which are good for me: Sharepoint REST API and Microsoft Graph API for Sharepoint. Which one should I choose? Are there any differences in functionality between them?

What I want to do exactly: download from Office365/upload to Office 365 site collections, sites, lists, folders, items, documents; save metadata and settings from Sharepoint site; save history.

Is it possible? If so, in which way can I do it?

Answer 1

Across all the Microsoft 365 services, teams are moving towards making all functionality available on the Microsoft Graph API. Currently, not all functionality is available on the Microsoft Graph.

My recommendation is to try and do what you are trying to do using Microsoft Graph API. If the feature is not there yet, then fall back to the SharePoint REST API and make sure the team knows you need that feature on the Microsoft Graph.

I am not able to tell you specific differences in functionality between what is supported in SharePoint REST API versus Microsoft Graph, however, the benefit of using the Graph is that you get a consistent developer experience for authentication, documentation, SDKs, samples and features like change notifications, delta queries and batch requests.

Answer 2

To answer your question around whether your features are supportedon Microsoft Graph. We cover off what is supported in the SharePoint SItes and Lists page https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/docs/concepts/sharepoint-concept-overview and also in the OneDrive Files page https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/docs/concepts/onedrive-concept-overview

• download from Office 365/upload to Office 365 site collections
• documents

use the OneDrive parts of Microsoft Graph https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/docs/api-reference/v1.0/resources/onedrive

• sites
• lists
• folders
• items

• save metadata

  use the Sites and Lists part of Graph https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/docs/api-reference/v1.0/resources/list

• settings from SharePoint site

  you can current get Site resource object, but can't update https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/docs/api-reference/beta/resources/site

• save history

  Can you be more specific on "saving history", do you mean file versioning? if so that is supported.

Answer 3

Microsoft has answered this exact topic. See choose-the-right-api-set-in-sharepoint.

I suspect you want to learn the REST API - it has all the functionality and requires less programming.