In the world of API development and web services, REST and SOAP remain two of the most widely used architectural styles. While both serve the same purpose — enabling communication between systems — they differ significantly in terms of design, implementation, and use cases. REST (Representational State Transfer) is known for its simplicity, flexibility, and widespread adoption in modern web and mobile applications. SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), on the other hand, is a protocol-based solution often used in enterprise environments where security, reliability, and formal contracts are critical.
In this article, we’ll break down REST vs SOAP in terms of architecture, messaging format, flexibility, performance, security, and when to use each.
Probably, once in a lifetime every API developer has stood at the parting of the ways choosing between REST and SOAP protocols. It seems that the process of finding the consensus decision is like to see two parallels cross - hard, but as mathematicians have shown - possible.
Developers don’t often fully understand what is REST vs SOAP, what are their main features and what makes them different. But the most dizzying question that occurs is when should you use one or another.
NordicAPIs, recently, has presented an outstanding infographic that gives an overview of REST vs SOAP. They’ve looked at these two types of protocols from the use-case perspective, making it easier to choose which one suits you best.
Explore this infographic to find out some basic concepts, pros, and cons of both and discover the use cases, when to choose one or other. Also, take a look at bright examples of using REST and SOAP protocols by popular systems like Twitter, Linkedin, Paypal, etc. in their APIs.
Rest vs Soap
So, it’s worth making some short conclusion based on this infographic. When you have to choose between REST and SOAP, compare them on a use-case basis. Examine their strengths and weakness from the perspective of your project goal.
