What is the difference between SOAP and REST web services?

What are the advantages of RESTful web services?

Fast: RESTful Web Services are fast because there is no strict specification like SOAP. It consumes less bandwidth and resource.
Language and Platform independent: RESTful web services can be written in any programming language and executed in any platform.
Can use SOAP: RESTful web services can use SOAP web services as the implementation.
Permits different data format: RESTful web service permits different data format such as Plain Text, HTML, XML and JSON.

What is RESTful web services?

REST stands for Representational State Transfer. It is a architectural style. It is not a protocol like SOAP

What is UDDI

• UDDI is an acronym for Universal Description, Discovery and Integration.

• UDDI is a XML based framework for describing, discovering and integrating web services.

• UDDI is a directory of web service interfaces described by WSDL, containing information about web services.

What is WSDL?

• WSDL is an acronym for Web Services Description Language.

• WSDL is a xml document containing information about web services such as method name, method parameter and how to access it.

• WSDL is a part of UDDI. It acts as a interface between web service applications.

• WSDL is pronounced as wiz-dull

What are the disadvantages of SOAP web services?

Slow: SOAP uses XML format that must be parsed to be read. It defines many standards that must be followed while developing the SOAP applications. So it is slow and consumes more bandwidth and resource.
WSDL dependent: SOAP uses WSDL and doesn't have any other mechanism to discover the service.

What are the advantages of SOAP web services?

WS Security: SOAP defines its own security known as WS Security.
Language and Platform independent: SOAP web services can be written in any programming language and executed in any platform.