RESTful APIs vs SOAP

Developers should learn RESTful APIs because they are the standard for building web services and enabling interoperability between different systems, such as in microservices, mobile backends, and public APIs meets developers should learn soap when working with enterprise-level systems, legacy applications, or scenarios requiring strict security, reliability, and transactional support, such as in financial services or healthcare. Here's our take.

RESTful APIs

Nice Pick

Developers should learn RESTful APIs because they are the standard for building web services and enabling interoperability between different systems, such as in microservices, mobile backends, and public APIs

Pros

• They are essential for creating scalable and maintainable applications that need to expose data or functionality over the internet, such as in e-commerce platforms, social media apps, or IoT devices
• Related to: http-protocol, json

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

SOAP

Developers should learn SOAP when working with enterprise-level systems, legacy applications, or scenarios requiring strict security, reliability, and transactional support, such as in financial services or healthcare

Pros

• It is particularly useful for integrating heterogeneous systems where standardized, platform-independent communication is critical, and when using WS-* standards for features like encryption and message routing
• Related to: xml, wsdl

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

The Verdict

These tools serve different purposes. RESTful APIs is a concept while SOAP is a protocol. We picked RESTful APIs based on overall popularity, but your choice depends on what you're building.

The Bottom Line

RESTful APIs wins

Based on overall popularity. RESTful APIs is more widely used, but SOAP excels in its own space.