Rest API vs Soap vs Web API

API.

As you may know, API stands for Application Programming Interface. An API is a set of programming codes that enables data transmission between one software product and another. It also contains the terms of this data exchange. There are two components that Application programming consists of, Technical specification and Software Interface.

• Technical specification: describes data exchange options between solutions with specifications done in form of a request for sending data or data delivery protocols.
• Software Interface: written to the specification that represents it.

There are three approaches to API release polices.

1. Private: API is only for use internally. This gives companies the most control over their API.
2. Partner: The API is shared with specific business partners. This can provide additional revenue streams without compromising quality.
3. Public: The API is available to everyone. This allows third parties to develop apps that interact with your API and can be a source for innovation.

Web API

Now that we have covered what is an API, let’s move to Web API. Web API is an open-source framework that is used to write HTTP APIs. It refers to an API over the web, which can be accessed using the HTTP protocol. It is important to note that it is a concept and not a technology. With Web API, developers can build Web API using technologies like Java or . NET. Web API implements protocol specification and it incorporates concepts like caching, URIs, versioning, request, and response headers.

Here are some examples of Web APIs:

• Google APIs- In any area of modern technology, Google will set the benchmark. Their APIs include Google Analytic API, YouTube API, and Google Font API.

REST API

We talked about Web API, but let me get into the client-server architecture. Applications itself is the client or front end, under the hood it needs to talk to a server or the back end to get or save the data. This communication happens using the HTTP protocol, which is the same protocol that powers our web. So on the server, we expose a bunch of services that are accessible via HTTP protocol. The client can then directly call the services by sending HTTP requests, so this is where REST comes into the picture. REST is short for Representational State Transfer, it was introduced by PhD student as part of his thesis. REST is basically a convention for building these HTTP services , so we use simple HTTP protocol principles to provide support to create read and update and delete data. REST is not a protocol, it is a tool or library, a style of web service that provides a channel of communication between systems or computers on the internet. It is a standard, designing Network-based software system. REST can be used on any protocol, take advantage of HTTP when used for Web APIs.

The advantage of REST APIs is that they offer more flexibility. In REST APIs, data is not constrained to resources or methods. It can make multiple types of calls and return many data formats.

SOAP Web Services

SOAP is simply a protocol, which was designed way before REST came into the picture. The main idea behind designing SOAP was to ensure programs that are built on different platforms and programming languages like Java, HTML, and Python could exchange data in a very easy manner. SOAP stands for simple object access protocol, which is a messaging protocol specification for exchanging structured information that is data in the implementation of web services and computer networks.

I hope this article has been helpful for you while you are on your journey to becoming a software engineer. Thank you for reading!