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
| POD | RESTful | RESTless |
|---|---|---|
| Meaning | An 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. |
| Example | REST | SOAP |
| Data Format Supported | Support various data formats such as HTML, JSON, XML, Text etc | Support XML format only |
| Expose Business Logic | Use URL to expose business logic. | Use the service interface to expose business logic. |
| Easier and Flexible | Yes | Not as easy |
| Security | Inherits security measures from the underlying transport protocols; therefore it is less secure | Defines its own security layer and is more secure |
| Bandwidth and resources | 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. | more bandwidth as it needs to convert the data in XML which increases its payload and results in the large sized file. |