What is the difference between REST and SOAP protocols?

Question

Jignesh Trivedi · Answer

hi SOAP uses WSDL for communication between consumer and provider whereas REST just uses XML or JSON to send and receive data WSDL(SOAP) defines contract between client and service and is static by its nature. In case of REST contract is somewhat complicated and is defined by HTTP URI Media Formats and Application Specific Coordination Protocol. REST is over only HTTP http://bhavin.directi.com/http-vs-rest-vs-soap/ http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd942839.aspx http://geeknizer.com/rest-vs-soap-using-http-choosing-the-right-webservice-protocol/

Rishikesh Kumar Singh · Answer

Both REST and SOAP are often termed Web services and one is often used in place of the other but they are totally different approaches: 1).REST stands for Representational State Transfer. whereas SOAP stands for Simple object Access Protocol. 2). REST is an architectural style for building client-server applications. whereas SOAP is a protocol specification for exchanging data between two endpoints. 3). REST has no WSDL interface definition Whereas SOAP has a WSDL interface definition. 4). REST is over HTTP. Whereas SOAP can be over any transport protocols such HTTP FTP STMP JMS etc. 5). SOAP is using soap envelope but REST is just XML. 6). REST is limited by HTTP itself which can't provide two-phase commit across distributed transactional resources but SOAP can. 7). Rest doesn't have a standard messaging system and expects clients to deal with communication failures by retrying. SOAP has successful/retry logic built in and provides end-to-end reliability even through SOAP intermediaries. Go through http://spf13.com/post/soap-vs-rest/ http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd942839.aspx If it helps you then mark it as an accepted answer..!!

Sachin Bhardwaj · Answer

REST (Representational State Transfer) defines a set of architectural principles by which you can design Web services that focus on a system's resources including how resource states are addressed and transferred over HTTP by a wide range of clients written in different languages. SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) is a simple XML-based protocol to let applications exchange information over HTTP. Or SOAP is a protocol for accessing a Web Service. SOAP is for communication protocol between applications SOAP is a format for sending messages SOAP communicates via Internet SOAP is platform independent SOAP is language independent SOAP is based on XML SOAP is simple and extensible SOAP allows you to get around firewalls