SOAP web服务总是执行POST操作，而使用REST，您可以选择特定的HTTP方法，如GET、POST、PUT和DELETE。

例如:要使用SOAP获取一个项目，您应该创建一个请求XML，但是在REST的情况下，您可以在URL本身中指定项目id。

REST vs. SOAP Web Services I am seeing a lot of new web services are implemented using a REST style architecture these days rather than a SOAP one. Lets step back a second and explain what REST is. What is a REST web service? The acronym REST stands for representational state transfer, and this basically means that each unique URL is a representation of some object. You can get the contents of that object using an HTTP GET, to delete it, you then might use a POST, PUT, or DELETE to modify the object (in practice most of the services use a POST for this). Who's using REST? All of Yahoo's web services use REST, including Flickr and Delicious. APIs use it, pubsub, bloglines, Technorati, and both eBay, and Amazon have web services for both REST and SOAP. Who's using SOAP? Google seams to be consistent in implementing their web services to use SOAP, with the exception of Blogger, which uses XML-RPC. You will find SOAP web services in lots of enterprise software as well. REST vs. SOAP As you may have noticed the companies I mentioned that are using REST APIs haven't been around for very long, and their APIs came out this year mostly. So REST is definitely the trendy way to create a web service, if creating web services could ever be trendy (lets face it you use soap to wash, and you rest when your tired). The main advantages of REST web services are: Lightweight - not a lot of extra XML markup Human Readable Results Easy to build - no toolkits required. SOAP also has some advantages: Easy to consume - sometimes Rigid - type checking, adheres to a contract Development tools For consuming web services, its sometimes a toss up between which is easier. For instance Google's AdWords web service is really hard to consume (in ColdFusion anyway), it uses SOAP headers, and a number of other things that make it kind of difficult. On the converse, Amazon's REST web service can sometimes be tricky to parse because it can be highly nested, and the result schema can vary quite a bit based on what you search for. Whichever architecture you choose make sure its easy for developers to access it, and well documented.

Freitag, P.(2005)。“REST vs SOAP Web服务”。检索自http://www.petefreitag.com/item/431.cfm, 2010年6月13日

SOAP Web服务:

如果您的应用程序需要有保证的可靠性和安全性级别，那么SOAP将提供额外的标准来确保这种类型的操作。 如果双方(服务提供者和服务使用者)必须就交换格式达成一致，那么SOAP将为这种类型的交互提供严格的规范。

RestWeb服务:

完全无状态操作:用于无状态的CRUD(创建、读取、更新和删除)操作。 缓存情况:如果信息需要缓存。

SOAP web服务总是执行POST操作，而使用REST，您可以选择特定的HTTP方法，如GET、POST、PUT和DELETE。

例如:要使用SOAP获取一个项目，您应该创建一个请求XML，但是在REST的情况下，您可以在URL本身中指定项目id。

REST stands for representational state transfer whereas SOAP stands for Simple Object Access Protocol. SOAP defines its own security where as REST inherits security from the underlying transport. SOAP does not support error handling, but REST has built-in error handling. REST is lightweight and does not require XML parsing. REST can be consumed by any client, even a web browser with Ajax and JavaScript. REST consumes less bandwidth, it does not require a SOAP header for every message. REST is useful over any protocol which provide a URI. Ignore point 5 for REST as mentioned below in the picture.

REST和SOAP的区别: