The document compares REST and SOAP, arguing that REST should generally be considered over SOAP. It notes that REST excels over SOAP in terms of API flexibility and simplicity, lower bandwidth usage, security, performance and scalability, support for various data formats, and popularity among major web services. Only in rare cases where requirements are not met should SOAP be considered over REST.

1. EEDC
Home
work2
SOAP
vs.
RE
ST
Faik
Aras
T
arhan

2. General
Idea
0 REST
should
be
considered
as
the
Cirst
alternative
while
choosing
between
REST
and
SOAP.
0 If
REST
does
not
fulCill
the
requirements
(
which
is
really
rare),
then
we
should
come
up
with
SOAP.

3. Why?
0 REST
excels
SOAP
in
terms
of:
0 API
Flexibility
&
Simplicity
0 Bandwidth
Usage
0 Security
0 Performance
&
Scalability
0 Popularity
0 Variety
of
Data
Formats

4. API
Flexibility
&
Simplicity
0 Accessibility
to
a
Web
server
via
an
URI
0 Service
is
called
easily
with
an
HTTP
GET
command
0 The
resulting
HTTP
response
might
be
simple
as
well

5. Bandwidth
Usage
0 REST
is
lighter
0 SOAP
requires
an
XML
wrapper
around
every
request
and
response
0 SOAP
response
could
require
more
than
10
times
as
many
bytes
as
would
the
same
response
in
REST

6. Security
0 REST
calls
also
go
over
HTTP
or
HTTPS
like
SOAP
0 With
REST
Cirewall
can
recognize
the
intent
of
each
message
by
analyzing
the
HTTP
command
used
in
the
request
0 For
example,
a
GET
request
can
always
be
considered
safe
because
it
can’t
modify
but
query
data

7. Performance
&
Scalability
0 Typical
actions
performed
by
REST
based
services
include
generic
CRUD
operations
that
do
not
require
state
and
proxy
servers
can
cache
their
response
very
easily.
Thus,
we
reach:
0 Better
response
and
loading
time
0 Decreased
load
on
the
server
0 Better
user
experience
0 On
the
other
hand,
SOAP
requests
use
POST
and
require
a
complex
XML
request
to
be
created
which
makes
response-­‐caching
difCicult

8. Variety
of
Data
Formats
0 REST
permits
many
different
data
formats
where
as
SOAP
only
permits
XML
0 SON
usually
is
a
better
Cit
for
data
and
parses
much
faster
0 REST
allows
better
support
for
browser
clients
due
to
it’s
support
for
JSON

9. Popularity
0 All
of
the
major
web
services
on
the
Internet
now
use
REST
0 All
of
Yahoo's
web
services
use
REST,
including
Flickr,
del.icio.us
0 Google
used
to
provide
only
SOAP
for
all
their
services,
but
in
2006
they
deprecated
in
favor
of
REST
source
0 Both
eBay,
and
Amazon
have
web
services
for
both
REST
and
SOAP