RESTful vs RESTless Web API

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The main difference between RESTful and RESTless Web Service is that the RESTful web service is an application that follows the Representational State Transfer architecture while the RESTless web service is an application that does not follow RESTful principles.

Difference between RESTful and RESTless Services

PODRESTfulRESTless
MeaningAn application that conforms to the REST architectural style that provides interoperability between computer systems on the internet.An application that is not use on the principles of REST.
ExampleRESTSOAP
Data Format SupportedSupport various data formats such as HTML, JSON, XML, Text etc Support XML format only
Expose Business LogicUse URL to expose business logic.Use the service interface to expose business logic.
Easier and FlexibleYesNot as easy
SecurityInherits security measures from the underlying transport protocols; therefore it is less secureDefines its own security layer and is more secure
Bandwidth and resourcesdeploys 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.more bandwidth as it needs to convert the data in XML which increases its payload and results in the large sized file.