Representational state transfer (REST) and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)

rest soap
Vicky picture Vicky · Oct 16, 2008 · Viewed 280.2k times · Source

Can somebody explain what is REST and what is SOAP in plain english? And how Web Services work?

Answer

Nakkeeran picture Nakkeeran · Jan 24, 2012

Simple explanation about SOAP and REST

SOAP - "Simple Object Access Protocol"

SOAP is a method of transferring messages, or small amounts of information, over the Internet. SOAP messages are formatted in XML and are typically sent using HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol).

Rest - Representational state transfer

Rest is a simple way of sending and receiving data between client and server and it doesn't have very many standards defined. You can send and receive data as JSON, XML or even plain text. It's light weighted compared to SOAP.

enter image description here

Related questions

SOAP vs REST (differences)

I have read articles about the differences between SOAP and REST as a web service communication protocol, but I think that the biggest advantages for REST over SOAP are: REST is more dynamic, no need to create and update UDDI(…

Read More
Main differences between SOAP and RESTful web services in Java

For now I have a slight idea about the differences between SOAP and RESTful services. My question is when I should use SOAP, and when I should use RESTful; which one is "better" when it comes to performance/speed or …

Read More
REST / SOAP endpoints for a WCF service

I have a WCF service and I want to expose it as both a RESTfull service and as a SOAP service. Anyone has done something like this before?

Read More