Is RESTful faster than SOAP? and when to use one of them?

Question

Duplicate: This is a duplicate of \"What are the best uses of REST services?\" and many others. Please close it.

In web development:

Should

Answer 1

My client (major carrier) actually ran a performance test on REST vs SOAP access to their API's and found the difference was almost non-existent. XML parsers are pretty quick these days and aside from that, there isn't much actual overhead when using SOAP. The contract (WSDL) with all it's rules and specifications is something that comes into play when a client program is being written or updated, not so much in the scope of a real-time exchange with an API.