REST vs SOAP

1. SOAP - “Simple Object Access Protocol”. Rest - Representational state transfer
2. SOAP is a xml-based message protocol. REST is an architectural style protocol.
3. SOAP usages WSDL for communication between consumer & provider. REST uses XML or JSON to send or receive data,
4. SOAP invokes services by calling RPC method. REST simply calls services via URL path.
5. SOAP doesn’t return human readable result. REST’s result is readable which is just plain xml or json.
6. SOAP: Transfer is over HTTP. Also uses other protocols such as SMTP, FTP etc. REST: Transfer is over HTTP only.
7. Javascript can call SOAP, but it is difficult to implement. REST is easy to call from javascript.
8. SOAP: Performance is not great compared to REST.