[andrewingram]

I'm trying to think back here, but I've been using GraphQL in production (at two different employers) for over 3 years, and I don't think there's any Apollo code in any of those systems.

Apollo Server is an improvement over baseline graphql-express, but for the most part it's nothing you can't easily add yourself. Having compatibility with Apollo Engine is useful if you end up wanting to use their monitoring tools. Pretty much everything else is just down to how much you want to buy into their ecosystem.