# Entity Service API

Strapi provides an Entity Service API, built on top of the Query Engine API. The Entity Service is the layer that handles Strapi's complex data structures like components and dynamic zones, and uses the Query Engine API under the hood to execute database queries.

🤓 Entity Service API vs. Query Engine API

Strapi v4 offers several layers to interact with the backend and build your queries:

The Entity Service API is the recommended API to interact with your application's database. The Entity Service is the layer that handles Strapi's complex data structures like components and dynamic zones, which the lower-level layers are not aware of.
The Query Engine API interacts with the database layer at a lower level and is used under the hood to execute database queries. It gives unrestricted internal access to the database layer, but should be used only if the Entity Service API does not cover your use case.
If you need direct access to knex functions, use strapi.db.connection.

# Basic usage

The Entity Service is available through strapi.entityService:

const entry = await strapi.entityService.findOne('api::article.article', 1, {
  populate: { someRelation: true },
});

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# Available operations

The Entity Service API allows:

CRUD operations on entities (e.g. findOne, findMany, create, update, delete) with the ability to filter, order and paginate results, and populate relations, components and dynamic zones
the creation and update of components and dynamic zones