There are plenty of discussions and comparisons of API architectures using REST versus SOAP. But which is a better approach when building cloud native services and applications?

SOAP is really focused on the services or the end points rather than resources, which means that although REST and SOAP are theoretically not mutually exclusive, they are in practice.

As APIs continue to proliferate, so do their types: REST, SOAP, GraphQL, Kafka-based APIs, Publish/Subscribe Pattern-Based APIs, Remote Procedure Call protocols and Webhooks, among them.

So, perhaps not surprisingly, SOAP started losing some ground to a more lightweight and Web-friendly architectural style called Representational State Transfer (REST), which complements SOAP.

There are perceptions afoot of a Web services war pitting SOAP-based WS-* services against REST services. But an official at Microsoft, which has spearheaded development of WS-* specifications ...