Classification of Web Services and its merits and demerits

Web Service - 2 types

1. SOAP web service
2. RESTful web service

Advantages of SOAP - 

• 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.

Disadvantages of SOAP -

1. 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.
2. WSDL dependent: SOAP uses WSDL and doesn't have any other mechanism to discover the service.

RESTful Web Services -

• REpresentational State Transfer.
• It is an architectural style not a protocol.

Advantages of RESTful - 

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