What's the difference between REST & RESTful

architecture rest
AwkwardCoder picture AwkwardCoder · Oct 14, 2009 · Viewed 306.4k times · Source

What's the difference between a REST system and a system that is RESTful?

From a few things I've read most so called REST services are actually RESTful services. So what is the difference between the two.

Answer

Justin Ethier picture Justin Ethier · Oct 14, 2009

Representational state transfer (REST) is a style of software architecture. As described in a dissertation by Roy Fielding, REST is an "architectural style" that basically exploits the existing technology and protocols of the Web.

RESTful is typically used to refer to web services implementing such an architecture.

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