Although there are many different kinds of APIs, they can be broadly divided into four groups: SOAP, REST, HTTP, and WebSocket.
The standard protocol SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) can be used to create web services. It passes messages using transport protocols like HTTP or SMTP and encrypts them using XML. Because it is simple to integrate with existing systems and offers a reliable method for implementing web services, SOAP is frequently used in enterprise applications.
A web service built using the REST (Representational State Transfer) architectural style makes direct calls to resources without the use of a central dispatcher by using straightforward HTTP requests. Because of this, developing and scaling RESTful apps is significantly easier than it is for other types of services.
The sort of API that is used the most is HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). Data, frequently HTML pages, are transmitted between a server and a client using this method.Being a stateless protocol, HTTP is ineffective for sharing data between a server and numerous clients because each request is independent of all other requests. Therefore, it is not frequently employed in real-time applications.
Real-time communication is made possible between browsers and servers thanks to a more contemporary technology called Websocket. Because sockets are used to provide a direct connection between the browser and server, it is more effective than HTTP.
