REST Web Services and Other Integration Options
To decide the best integration option for your purposes, consider the following comparisons.
The following table compares the characteristics of REST web services with those of SOAP web services and RESTlets.
The limits for concurrent requests are unified for SOAP and REST web services and for RESTlets. For information about account concurrency, see Web Services and RESTlet Concurrency Governance.
For a comparison of RESTlets with other integration options, see RESTlets vs. Other NetSuite Integration Options.
Attribute |
REST Web Services |
SOAP Web Services |
RESTlets |
---|---|---|---|
Supported Operations |
get, search, add, update, delete |
get, search, add, update, delete |
get, search, add, update |
Authentication Supported? |
Yes (token-based authentication, OAuth 2.0) |
Yes (user credentials; token-based authentication)
Important:
User credentials are not preferred as an authentication method for SOAP web services. If you are currently using this method, you should transition to use token-based authentication instead. |
Yes (user credentials; token-based authentication, OAuth 2.0)
Important:
As of the 2021.1 release, user credentials authentication for newly created RESTlets is not supported. If you attempt to authenticate a new RESTlet with user credentials after your account is upgraded to 2021.1, an HTTP error response is returned. For more information, see Using User Credentials for RESTlet Authentication. |
Passing of Login Details |
in OAuth authorization header |
in body (SOAP) |
in authorization header |
Passing of Parameters |
all parameters on URL |
all parameters in body (SOAP) |
GET parameters on URL |
Supported Content Types |
JSON, Swagger |
text/xml (explicit) |
JSON, text/xml (explicit) |
Environment |
lightweight, no coding and script deployment needed on the server side, suitable for mobile devices |
heavy programming and deployment environment (C#, Java) no coding and script deployment needed on the server side |
lightweight, suitable for mobile devices, bundleable |
Functionality |
|
|
All functionality available through SuiteScript:
Note:
SuiteScript does not provide metadata. |
Standards |
Similar to the REST APIs of other Oracle products |
SOAP protocol |
No standards |
Required User Knowledge |
REST programmer API level knowledge |
SOAP programmer API level knowledge |
JavaScript programmer SuiteScript level knowledge |
Performance |
Using REST API, fewer calls may be required to accomplish a business flow. Therefore the overall performance may be better than SOAP and CSV. |
SOAP web services require more calls to accomplish a business flow than the REST API. |
RESTlets are the fastest integration channel. All actions required for a business flow can be executed within a single call. |