Web Service is a way of communication using
which two different machines can interact over a network.
Mainly there are two
type of Web Services:
1) SOAP
So, In this article, we will
learn about a few major differences between SOAP and REST API. Although both have a few advantages and disadvantages compared to each other although in this article
we will look into a few major differences.
S.No
|
SOAP
|
REST
|
1
|
SOAP stands for Simple
Object Access Protocol.
|
REST stands for Representational
State Transfer
|
2
|
SOAP is an XML
based message protocol.
|
REST is an Architectural
Style Protocol.
|
3
|
SOAP only supports XML
|
REST supports different
format like HTML,JSON,Text,XML etc.
|
4
|
SOAP message consists of an
envelope which includes SOAP headers and body to store the actual information
we want to send it.
|
REST uses HTTP build in
headers with a variety of media types to carry metadata information.
|
5
|
SOAP Required more bandwidth
and resource as messages contain a lot of information inside it.
|
REST Required less
bandwidth and resource as it only consist of JSON Format.
|
6
|
SOAP defines a standard which
needs to be rigorously followed.
|
REST does not define too much
standard.
|
7
|
SOAP can’t use rest because
it’s a protocol.
|
REST can use SOAP web services because it’s a concept and can use any protocol.
|
8
|
SOAP uses WSDL for communication
between consumers and providers.
|
REST uses XML Or JSON to send/receive
data.
|
9
|
SOAP does not return
result in human editable format.
|
REST Result is
readable in plain JSON Or XML Format.
|
10
|
SOAP performance is not great hence
less preferred.
|
REST performance is much
better compared to SOAP.
|
