SOAP or REST API: Its Decision Time!!!!

The age-old question for an engineer is to find out which web API is the right choice for his/her project? Is it SOAP or REST API?

So, if you are looking for a resource that provides you with an answer to this age-old question, then you have come to the right platform.

First of all let’s try to understand the Web API, its application, and its features.

Web API- Introduction

Application Programming Interface (API) is a type of interface having a set of functions to allow the programmers to access the capabilities or data of a specific application, operating system, or other services.

Web API as the name suggests is an API over the web which can be accessed using the HTTP protocol. It refers to both sides of computer systems communicating over a network. It works on the approach of a request-response message system. There are several design models for web services but the two most dominant are the SOAP and REST.

SOAP vs REST

SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) and REST (Representational State Transfer) are basically two approaches for interfacing the web with web services. Both approaches are good to go, but there is considerable confusion between the two and their distinct functions. Also, it is up to the engineer to make the decision of which approach may be best for each particular case. But how this decision should be made; how would you know when to use REST vs SOAP? This really matters.

Pic courtesy:?https://stackify.com/soap-vs-rest/

Underlying Features: To make the decision:

1. REST is commonly used when you are exposing a public API over the internet. SOAP on the other hand exposes components of application logic as services rather than data. Additionally, it operates through different interfaces.
2. REST is designed to be stateless and focuses on resource-based (or data-based) operations. SOAP is good for applications that require a formal contract between the API.
3. REST uses HTTP and basic CRUD operations, so it is simple to write and document. SOAP uses XML rather than HTTP to define the content of the message.
4. REST allows a greater variety of data formats, whereas SOAP only allows XML.
5. REST is generally faster and uses less bandwidth whereas SOAP is highly extensible through other protocols and technologies.

At the end of the day, the best protocol is the one that meets the requirements of the organization, caters to the types of clients that you need to support, and fulfills the mechanism of flexibility.