REST vs SOAP: What 10 Years of Enterprise Development Taught Me

The controversial truth about enterprise API decisions

The $3 Million Lesson

"We're going to rebuild this banking API in REST because SOAP is dead."

That was our new CTO's first declaration in 2019. We had a SOAP-based payment system handling $2 billion daily with 99.99% uptime.

Six months and $3 million later, we switched back to SOAP.

That expensive lesson taught me: Sometimes SOAP isn't just better than REST — it's the only sensible choice.

When SOAP Actually Wins

This may seem strange to all folks who have believed that REST is better than SOAP but there are scenarios where SOAP is actually a better choice.