[rest] SOAP vs REST (differences)

SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) and REST (Representation State Transfer) both are beautiful in their way. So I am not comparing them. Instead, I am trying to depict the picture, when I preferred to use REST and when SOAP.

What is payload?

When data is sent over the Internet, each unit transmitted includes both header information and the actual data being sent. The header identifies the source and destination of the packet, while the actual data is referred to as the payload. In general, the payload is the data that is carried on behalf of an application and the data received by the destination system.

Now, for example, I have to send a Telegram and we all know that the cost of the telegram will depend on some words.

So tell me among below mentioned these two messages, which one is cheaper to send?

<name>Arin</name>

or

"name": "Arin"

I know your answer will be the second one although both representing the same message second one is cheaper regarding cost.

So I am trying to say that, sending data over the network in JSON format is cheaper than sending it in XML format regarding payload.

Here is the first benefit or advantages of REST over SOAP. SOAP only support XML, but REST supports different format like text, JSON, XML, etc. And we already know, if we use Json then definitely we will be in better place regarding payload.

Now, SOAP supports the only XML, but it also has its advantages.

Really! How?

SOAP relies on XML in three ways Envelope – that defines what is in the message and how to process it.

A set of encoding rules for data types, and finally the layout of the procedure calls and responses gathered.

This envelope is sent via a transport (HTTP/HTTPS), and an RPC (Remote Procedure Call) is executed, and the envelope is returned with information in an XML formatted document.

The important point is that one of the advantages of SOAP is the use of the “generic” transport but REST uses HTTP/HTTPS. SOAP can use almost any transport to send the request but REST cannot. So here we got an advantage of using SOAP.

As I already mentioned in above paragraph “REST uses HTTP/HTTPS”, so go a bit deeper on these words.

When we are talking about REST over HTTP, all security measures applied HTTP are inherited, and this is known as transport level security and it secures messages only while it is inside the wire but once you delivered it on the other side you don’t know how many stages it will have to go through before reaching the real point where the data will be processed. And of course, all those stages could use something different than HTTP.So Rest is not safer completely, right?

But SOAP supports SSL just like REST additionally it also supports WS-Security which adds some enterprise security features. WS-Security offers protection from the creation of the message to it’s consumption. So for transport level security whatever loophole we found that can be prevented using WS-Security.

Apart from that, as REST is limited by it's HTTP protocol so it’s transaction support is neither ACID compliant nor can provide two-phase commit across distributed transnational resources.

But SOAP has comprehensive support for both ACID based transaction management for short-lived transactions and compensation based transaction management for long-running transactions. It also supports two-phase commit across distributed resources.

I am not drawing any conclusion, but I will prefer SOAP-based web service while security, transaction, etc. are the main concerns.

Here is the "The Java EE 6 Tutorial" where they have said A RESTful design may be appropriate when the following conditions are met. Have a look.

Hope you enjoyed reading my answer.

Examples related to rest

Access blocked by CORS policy: Response to preflight request doesn't pass access control check Returning data from Axios API Access Control Origin Header error using Axios in React Web throwing error in Chrome JSON parse error: Can not construct instance of java.time.LocalDate: no String-argument constructor/factory method to deserialize from String value How to send json data in POST request using C# How to enable CORS in ASP.net Core WebAPI RestClientException: Could not extract response. no suitable HttpMessageConverter found REST API - Use the "Accept: application/json" HTTP Header 'Field required a bean of type that could not be found.' error spring restful API using mongodb MultipartException: Current request is not a multipart request

Examples related to web-services

How do I POST XML data to a webservice with Postman? How to send json data in POST request using C# org.springframework.web.client.HttpClientErrorException: 400 Bad Request How to call a REST web service API from JavaScript? The request was rejected because no multipart boundary was found in springboot Generating Request/Response XML from a WSDL How to send a POST request using volley with string body? How to send post request to the below post method using postman rest client How to pass a JSON array as a parameter in URL Postman Chrome: What is the difference between form-data, x-www-form-urlencoded and raw

Examples related to http

Access blocked by CORS policy: Response to preflight request doesn't pass access control check Axios Delete request with body and headers? Read response headers from API response - Angular 5 + TypeScript Android 8: Cleartext HTTP traffic not permitted Angular 4 HttpClient Query Parameters Load json from local file with http.get() in angular 2 Angular 2: How to access an HTTP response body? What is HTTP "Host" header? Golang read request body Angular 2 - Checking for server errors from subscribe

Examples related to soap

No found for dependency: expected at least 1 bean which qualifies as autowire candidate for this dependency. Dependency annotations: There was no endpoint listening at (url) that could accept the message How to enable SOAP on CentOS SOAP-ERROR: Parsing WSDL: Couldn't load from - but works on WAMP SOAP vs REST (differences) SOAP request to WebService with java How to consume a SOAP web service in Java Sending SOAP request using Python Requests JSON, REST, SOAP, WSDL, and SOA: How do they all link together What is the difference between JAX-RS and JAX-WS?

Examples related to definition

"Multiple definition", "first defined here" errors SOAP vs REST (differences) Error with multiple definitions of function ReferenceError: variable is not defined C# Foreach statement does not contain public definition for GetEnumerator Add Auto-Increment ID to existing table? How to see the CREATE VIEW code for a view in PostgreSQL? Java: int[] array vs int array[] What is a web service endpoint? What is a "thread" (really)?