Hooks migration guide

The new hooks API for Apollo Client is a simpler way to fetch data in your React app without the boilerplate of render prop components and higher-order components (HOC). We recommend using hooks for all new Apollo code going forward.

Upgrading to the new hooks API requires a major version bump from the previous version of Apollo's React integration. Before updating to the latest version, it's important to review the following details:

Breaking changes

Please keep in mind that this is a major version release, and there are some breaking changes (we've tried to keep them to a minimum). The full breaking changes list can be found in the Changelog.md.

New packages

To help reduce application bundle sizes, React Apollo 3 introduces a new modular package structure:

Individual packages (recommended):

• @apollo/react-hooks
• @apollo/react-components
• @apollo/react-hoc

Umbrella package (includes hooks, render props, and HOCs):

• react-apollo

Supporting packages:

• @apollo/react-common
• @apollo/react-ssr
• @apollo/react-testing

You can use the umbrella react-apollo package to get access to the new hooks, along with the legacy graphql HOC and Query / Mutation / Subscription components. If you're planning on supporting each of these 3 different paradigms in your application while you incrementally migrate, then the react-apollo package should work well.

If you're only planning on using some of this functionality, like only the new hooks, then you'll want to install the individual packages instead of react-apollo. Installing only the @apollo/react-hooks package yields a 50% bundle size savings than using all of react-apollo.

Installation/upgrade scenarios

I just want to use Apollo hooks:

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npm install @apollo/react-hooks

I just want to use Apollo render prop components:

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npm install @apollo/react-components

(and remove the react-apollo package if it was previously installed)

I just want to use Apollo HOCs:

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npm install @apollo/react-hoc

(and remove the react-apollo package if it was previously installed)

I want to use all 3 React Apollo paradigms in my application:

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npm install react-apollo

Bundle size note

React Apollo 3 uses hooks behind the scenes for everything, including the graphql HOC and render prop components. While installing and using only the paradigm package(s) that interest you will save on bundle size, the savings will vary based on the packages you're using. This is because the HOC package depends on the components package, and the components package depends on the hooks package. In other words:

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@apollo/react-hoc <-- @apollo/react-components <-- @apollo/react-hooks
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@apollo/react-components <-- @apollo/react-hooks
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@apollo/react-hooks

This means using only the @apollo/react-hooks package will give you the greatest bundle size savings.

Server-side rendering

The getDataFromTree and renderToStringWithData SSR functions are no longer bundled with any of the React Apollo packages in order to help reduce bundle sizes for those who aren't using SSR. If you want to use these functions, you'll need to add in the @apollo/react-ssr package:

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npm install @apollo/react-ssr

Testing

Testing utilities are no longer bundled with any of the React Apollo packages. Everything has been moved into the @apollo/react-testing package:

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npm install --save-dev @apollo/react-testing