Why Cosmic Uses REST (and Why That's the Right Call in 2026) Every few years, a new API paradigm gets declared the future. GraphQL had its moment. And it's genuinely good — for certain use cases. But "good for certain use cases" and "better default for most teams" are different claims. REST is still the right default, and in 2026 there's a new reason it matters: AI agents. Here's an honest breakdown of the tradeoffs, and why Cosmic is REST-first by design. The Honest GraphQL vs REST Comparison Let's be direct about where each one wins. Where GraphQL excels Precisely shaped responses. GraphQL lets clients request exactly the fields they need. On mobile or low-bandwidth environments, this can meaningfully reduce payload size. Single endpoint for complex graphs. When your data has deeply nested relationships and you need to traverse them in a single request, GraphQL's query model can simplify client code. Rapid iteration on the client side.…