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Difference between SOAP API,REST API and GraphQL API in tabular format using POSTMAN(for beginners)

This is my first blog. Learning a new tool can be challenging for beginners. I created this table to get an overall idea of the popular API's which can be tested with POSTMAN tool. The differences below are from an API testers perspective.

SOAP API

RESTful API

GraphQL API

Simple Object Access Protocol

Representation State Transfer Protocol

​GraphQL uses a query language for API

Data is sent in the XML format in the request to the endpoint

JSON,XML or Text format is used to send data in the request to the endpoint

Uses GraphQL which is very similar to JSON to send request

POST request is preferred as a lot of XML details have to be provided in GET method compared to POST.

GET,POST,PUT,DELETE calls can be easily made

In GraphQL both GET and POST methods can be used but POST request call on the API is easy

Envelope data has to be provided in the body before sending the request.

Not required

Not required

More data than required is fetched from a response . This slows down big applications. Large bandwidth is needed

More data than required is fetched from a response . This slows down big applications. Large bandwidth is NOT needed compared to SOAP

Exact data what is needed can be fetched using queries.Large bandwidth is not needed

In the header, content type has to be selected or deselected depending upon the SOAP service application/xml or text/xml

Headers can be set such as content type JSON if needed

Content-type: application/graphql is set in headers

Fetching data from different resources will have to be done using multiple API calls

Fetching data from different resources will have to be done using multiple API calls

Fetching data with a single API call


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