Below are the difference between SOAP and REST
| Point of Distinction | SOAP | REST |
|---|---|---|
| Stands for | Simple Object Access Protocol | REpresentational State Transfer |
| Type, Design and Implementation | SOAP is a protocol. Standardized protocol with pre-defined rules to follow. It has official Standard. | Rest is an Architectural Style with loose guidelines and recommendations. No official Standard at all. |
| Can use each other | SOAP can't use REST because it is a protocol and REST is an architectural pattern. | REST can use SOAP web services because its concept can use any protocol like HTTP, SOAP etc. |
| Approach | Function-driven (data available as services, e.g: "getUser") | Data-driven (data available as resources, e.g. “user”). |
| Statefulness | Stateless by default, but it's possible to make a SOAP API stateful. | Stateless (no server-side sessions). You can not make it stateful. |
| How business logic exposed | SOAP uses services interfaces to expose business logic. | REST uses URI to expose business logic. |
| Java API | JAX-WS - Java API for XML Web Services | JAX-RS. Java API for RESTful Web Services |
| Transfer Protocol | Largely based on XML and HTTP. Defines standards to be strictly followed. | Uses multiple standards like HTTP, JSON, URL and XML. |
| Description Language | WSDL - Web Services Description language | WADL - Web Application Description Language |
| Bandwidth and resource requirement | SOAP is difficult to implement and it requires more bandwidth as it needs to convert the data in XML which increases its payload and results in the large sized file. | As REST API deploys multiple standards, so it takes fewer resources and bandwidth as compared to SOAP that uses XML for the creation of Payload and results in the large sized file. |
| Service Interfaces | On behalf of services interfaces to business logic, SOAP uses @WebService | whereas REST instead of using interfaces uses URI like @Path. |
| Security | SOAP defines its own security. SOAP has SSL( Secure Socket Layer) and WS-security. In the case of Bank Account Password, Card Number, etc. SOAP is preferred over REST. | RESTFul web services inherits security measures from the underlying transport. REST has SSL and HTTPS. |
| Caching | API calls cannot be cached. | API calls can be cached. |
| Message Format | SOAP uses only XML for exchanging information in its message format. | REST is not restricted to XML and its the choice of implementer which Media-Type to use like XML, JSON, Plain-text. Moreover, REST can use SOAP protocol but SOAP cannot use REST. |
| Preferred by companies | Less | More compare to SOAP |
| Recommended For | Enterprise apps, high-security apps, distributed environment, financial services, payment gateways, telecommunication services. | Public APIs for web services, mobile services, social networks. |
| ACID Transaction Property | Supported | Some of the applications require transaction ability which is accepted by SOAP whereas REST lacks in it. |
| Faster | Fast | Faster than SOAP |
| Convenient with JavaScript | SOAP APIs are also convenient with JavaScript but don't support for greater implementation. | REST APIs are more convenient with JavaScript and can be implemented easily as well. |
| Application Support | Web Only | Web, Mobile, Desktop etc. |