What is REST/SOAP Web Services?

REST (Representational State Transfer) and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) are both architectural styles used for building web services. REST relies on standard HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) to access and manipulate resources, making it lightweight and scalable. SOAP is a protocol that uses XML for message format and typically relies on other protocols like HTTP, SMTP, or TCP. SOAP offers more built-in standards for security and reliability, but it can be more complex to implement than REST.