| PROS | CONS |
|---|
| SOAP | - language, platform, and transport agnostic
- designed to handle distributed computing environments
- is the prevailing standard for web-services, and hence has better support from other standards (WSDL, WS-*) and tooling from vendors.
- built-in error handling (faults)
- extensibility
|
- conceptually more difficult, more "heavy-weight" than REST
- more verbose
- hander to develop requires tools.
|
| REST | - language and platform agnostic
- much simplier to develop than SOAP
- small learning curve, less reliance on tools
- consice, no need for additional messaging layer
- closer in design and philisophy to the web
| - assumes a point-to-point communication model -- not usable for distributed computing environments where message may go throughe on or more intermediaries
- lack of standards support for security, policy, reliable messaging, etc., so services have more sophisticated requirements are harder to develop
- tied to the HTTP transport model.
|
Reference: http://ajaxonomy.com/2008/xml/web-services-part-1-soap-vs-rest
