SOAP vs REST

Both methods are used by many of the large players. It's a matter of preference. My preference is REST because it's simpler to use and understand.

SOAP:

  • SOAP builds an XML protocol on top of HTTP or sometimes TCP/IP.
  • SOAP describes functions, and types of data.
  • SOAP is a successor of XML-RPC and is very similar, but describes a standard way to communicate.
  • Several programming languages have native support for SOAP, you typically feed it a web service URL and you can call its web service functions without the need of specific code.
  • Binary data that is sent must be encoded first into a format such as base64 encoded.
  • Has several protocols and technologies relating to it: WSDL, XSDs, SOAP, WS-Addressing

Representational state transfer (REST):

  • REST need not be over HTTP but most of my points below will have an HTTP bias.
  • REST is very lightweight, it says wait a minute, we don't need all of this complexity that SOAP created.
  • Typically uses normal HTTP methods instead of a big XML format describing everything. For example to obtain a resource you use HTTP GET, to put a resource on the server you use HTTP PUT. To delete a resource on the server you use HTTP DELETE.
  • REST is a very simple in that it uses HTTP GET, POST and PUT methods to update resources on the server.
  • REST typically is best used with Resource Oriented Architecture (ROA). In this mode of thinking everything is a resource, and you would operate on these resources.
  • As long as your programming language has an HTTP library, and most do, you can consume a REST HTTP protocol very easily.
  • Binary data or binary resources can simply be delivered upon their request.
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