Abstract: This paper presents a comparative performance evaluation of two Web service implementations: one is based on SOAP and the other on Representational State Transfer (REST). SOAP and REST-based development approaches handle service interactions quite differently. SOAP is a standardized framework for constructing and processing messages independent of the technological capabilities of the receiver and can work on top of a variety of application layer protocols such as RPC, HTTP, or SMTP, whereas, REST is a set of principles for designing Web applications (HTTP as the underlying protocol). We built SOAP and REST-based Web services that perform CRUD operations on a database and retrieve local files. We utilized response time and throughput metrics to compare the performance of these Web services. We found that, on average, REST has better performance compared to SOAP, though not all results were statistically conclusive. As an ancillary outcome, we found that developing Web services using SOAP was easier, due to considerable tool support, whereas developing Web services using REST was time consuming and difficult due to the necessity of in-depth knowledge of HTTP and rudimentary tool support.

Keywords: Web Service, SOAP, REST, RESTful, Performance task, Interaction Style

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Recommended Citation: Kumar, P., Ahuja, S., Umapathy, K., Prodanoff, Z. (2013). Comparing Performance of Web Service Interaction Styles: SOAP vs. REST. Journal of Information Systems Applied Research, 6(1) pp 4-26. http://jisar.org/2013-6/ ISSN: 1946-1836. (A preliminary version appears in The Proceedings of CONISAR 2012)