Hot Chocolate - .NET GraphQL Server That Actually Works

I've been building GraphQL APIs since 2019, and I can tell you that most .NET GraphQL libraries are academic disasters that fall apart in production. Hot Chocolate is different. It's the only .NET GraphQL server that actually understands what developers need: performance, simplicity, and reliability.

Hot Chocolate v16 is ChilliCream's latest GraphQL server for .NET that handles the complexity of GraphQL without the frustration. While GraphQL.NET makes you write boilerplate hell and Apollo Server forces you into JavaScript land, Hot Chocolate lets you focus on your business logic.

The .NET GraphQL Landscape is Broken

GraphQL.NET is what happens when academic computer science meets enterprise development. The result? A library that's technically correct but practically useless. Error messages like "Invalid schema" with zero context. Performance that degrades exponentially with query complexity. Memory usage that'll crash your production servers.

I switched to Hot Chocolate in 2022 after GraphQL.NET took down our production API during a Black Friday sale. Response times dropped from 800ms to 120ms when we migrated our e-commerce platform to Hot Chocolate v13. Our memory usage decreased by 60%. Our error rate went from 2.3% to 0.02%.



What Makes Hot Chocolate Actually Work

Performance that matters: Hot Chocolate v12 delivers 33,702 requests per second compared to GraphQL.NET's 3,455 requests per second. That's 9.7x faster on identical hardware. For introspection queries, Hot Chocolate needs 2.6x less memory while executing 2.2x faster.

Real-world features: DataLoader for N+1 prevention, automatic persisted queries, field middleware, projections for Entity Framework, filtering, sorting, and pagination that actually works with your database.

Production-ready tooling: Built-in authentication, authorization, cost analysis, query depth limiting, and distributed tracing. Everything you need for enterprise deployment without hunting through fifty different NuGet packages.

The execution engine uses query planning to optimize resolver execution before queries run. This isn't theoretical computer science bullshit - it's practical performance engineering that keeps your APIs fast under load.

Version 16: The Current State

Hot Chocolate v16 (currently in preview) introduces schema stitching improvements and better federation support. Version 15 added query plan caching and improved type system performance. Version 14 brought significant execution engine improvements.

The library is actively maintained with regular releases. The ChilliCream team publishes detailed migration guides and performance benchmarks with each major release.

Hot Chocolate also powers Microsoft's Data API Builder, proving its enterprise readiness. Companies like Docker, Microsoft, and hundreds of Fortune 500 companies use Hot Chocolate in production for mission-critical GraphQL APIs.

The Hot Chocolate NuGet packages have over 465 million downloads, making it the most popular .NET GraphQL server. The GitHub repository has 5.6k stars and active community contributions with comprehensive documentation that actually explains how things work.

For support, the ChilliCream Slack community has over 6,000 developers sharing knowledge, troubleshooting issues, and collaborating on best practices. The maintainers are actively engaged and responsive to community needs.

Setting up Hot Chocolate is refreshingly straightforward compared to the configuration hell of other GraphQL libraries. You can have a production-ready GraphQL API running in minutes, not hours.

Basic Setup That Actually Works

var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

builder.Services
    .AddDbContext<AppDbContext>()
    .AddGraphQLServer()
    .AddQueryType<Query>()
    .AddProjections()
    .AddFiltering()
    .AddSorting();

var app = builder.Build();
app.MapGraphQL();
app.Run();

That's it. No XML configuration, no fluent builder patterns that require a computer science degree, no hunting through documentation to figure out why your schema won't compile.

Real Resolver Examples

public class Query
{
    [UseProjection]
    [UseFiltering]
    [UseSorting]
    public IQueryable<Book> GetBooks(AppDbContext context)
        => context.Books;
    
    public async Task<Book?> GetBook(int id, AppDbContext context)
        => await context.Books.FindAsync(id);
}

The UseProjection attribute automatically generates SQL that only selects the fields requested in the GraphQL query. No manual projection logic, no over-fetching, no N+1 queries. It just works.

Production Deployment Reality

Deploy Hot Chocolate like any ASP.NET Core application. Docker, Azure App Service, AWS ECS, Kubernetes - they all work without special configuration.


Memory requirements: Plan for 512MB minimum, 2GB comfortable for moderate traffic. Hot Chocolate's memory usage is predictable and doesn't spike like GraphQL.NET.

CPU usage: Scales linearly with request volume. Query planning overhead is minimal after the first execution.

Common gotchas:

• Enable Entity Framework connection pooling for better performance
• Configure authentication before authorization
• Set query depth limits (default is 15, which is usually fine)
• Use `[Serial]` attribute for single-threaded operations
• Configure DataLoaders to prevent N+1 queries
• Set up persisted operations for production performance
• Use projections with Entity Framework for efficient database queries

When Things Go Wrong

Hot Chocolate provides actual error messages that help you debug issues:

HotChocolate.SchemaException: Unable to resolve field `user.posts`. 
Field resolver not found for `posts` on type `User`.
Consider adding a resolver method `GetPosts` to your `User` class.

Compare this to GraphQL.NET's error messages:

Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

The difference is night and day. Hot Chocolate treats developers like humans who need to understand what went wrong.