Web service can be explained as software/application component that supports communication between two independent systems or applications over a network. In simple terms, it imparts interoperability between two machines through adopting open standards such as XML, SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI.
Basically, web service provides an object-oriented web interface to a database server, which is then utilized by another web server or a mobile application.
SOAP and REST are two different methods that support communication between two independent applications.
In this blog post, we will study each web service in detail.
SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol):
SOAP is an XML-based protocol and uses JAX-WS, which is a Java API for XML web services.
SOAP can be used with PHP, Java, or .Net on any platform as it is platform and language independent. This standard model makes use of HTTP and SMTP transport protocols for receiving and transmitting XML-format messages.
THREE MAJOR CHARACTERISTICS/PROS OF ‘SOAP’:
- WSDL – Web Services Description Language (WSDL), written in XML language is used for describing web services. This XML-based protocol has three major components and that includes Types, Operations, and Binding.
And irrespective whether a message contains document-oriented or procedure-oriented information or what the network protocols are used, WSDL standardizes the way it describes a web service.
- Extensibility – SOAP defines its own security. With extensions WS-Security, WS-Addressing, WS-Federation, data exchange between applications will be secure and reliable.
- Neutrality– Developers can operate over any protocol such as HTTP, SMTP, TCP, UDP, or JMS.
CONS:
- XML Infoset – This standard protocol allows only XML format. So when payload has to be transferred, the web service model takes a long time to serialize the action and this will affect the performance.
- Complex Syntax – Since SOAP is written in XML, developers will it difficult reading data-envelopes.
REST(REpresentational State Transfer):
REST is not a protocol but an architectural style and uses JAX-RS for web services.
REST web service supports data formats such as plain text, XML, HTML and JSON and is confined to HTTP protocol (GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE) for data exchange.
Basically, REST is preferred over SOAP as it uses less bandwidth. And the decoupled architecture has made it a popular building style for cloud-based APIs.
REST is not standard and comes with certain architectural constraints that are listed below.
- Uniform Interface
- Stateless
- Cacheable
- Client-Server
- Layered System
- Code on Demand (optional)
PROS OF ‘REST’:
- Flexible – Resources (nouns) are assigned with their own URLs, which define nothing but flexibility. Also, REST can be executed on any client/server with HTTP/HTTPS support.
- Cacheable- Reduced server load guarantees better performance and responses at REST is cacheable.
- Stateless – REST operates with stateless existence. The term ‘stateless’ implies that no information is retained by either sender or receiver during a session.
CONS:
- No Definite Standard – Many consider REST web service as flawed as no standard approach is adopted for building REST-based APIs.
- No Security Features – One should take care designing an application and protocol to make sure that PII is not transmitted to systems that cannot be trusted.
SOAP Vs REST: Which Web Service Architecture to Choose?
Developers prefer REST and SOAP web service architectures when they are working on system integration projects. But most of the time we can see developers choosing REST over SOAP and why is that, we will see now.
- When Developing a Public API
Also termed as open API, public APIs are distributed over the internet for free usage. Since REST works over HTTP specification and focuses on data-based operations, developers will find it helpful while developing open APIs.
- Extensive Exchange of (Back and Forth) Object Information
REST has stateless existence. That means each HTTP includes all the information that is required to generate a response. Neither client nor server is required to acknowledge for the messages that are exchanged.
- When API requires Quick Developer Response
In contrast to SOAP, REST accounts for stateless connection. And hence requests made between server and client will be completely independent of each other, which developers find beneficial.
