Are REST and HTTP the same thing?

Question

I would like to know the difference between REST and HTTP. Since a while, I have been studying these two subjects and they seem to me to be the same thing.

Answer 1

REST and HTTP are the same thing?

No, they’re not.

HTTP

HTTP means HyperText Transfer Protocol and is the most popular path for data transfer between computers. This protocol is used to connect hypertext pages in what we call the world-wide-web (WWW). However, there are also other available data transfer protocols such as FTP and the gopher, even if they are less popular.

In practice it works like this: when you type an address in the browser, it needs to send something somewhere saying that you want to read something. Imagine you typed in the Google address. Your browser prepares a letter, that’s right, literally a letter to the server where the Google site is located. In this letter is where the requisition with the methods HTTP.

REST

REpresentational STate Transfer, or REST, is a set of rules that ensure a scalable, easily extensible and fault-tolerant system. A world-wide-web is an example of this type of system (and the greatest possible example). REST by itself, it is not a new invention, but it is the documentation for systems like the world-wide-web.

One thing that confuses people a lot is that REST and HTTP are quite attached. And not by chance, the world-wide-web runs on the protocol HTTP, and a Restful API is also based on that same protocol. But, there is nothing in the rules of REST that says the use of the protocol HTTP is strictly mandatory. It is perfectly acceptable to use another protocol such as SNMP, SMTP or others, and your API may still be a Restful API.

Completion

In practice, most - if not all - Restful Apis use the HTTP as your communication protocol. Since infrastructure, Servers and client libraries are highly available for this communication protocol. The REST is based on an architectural style consisting of a coordinated set of architectural constraints applied to components, connectors and data elements within a distributed hypermedia system. The HTTP is the main protocol for data transfer in this architectural style.

Answer 2

REST is a communication protocol, based on the HTTP hypermedia protocol. But it does not impose restrictions on the format of the message, only on the behavior of the components involved.

The biggest advantage of the REST protocol is its flexibility. The developer can choose the most suitable format for the system messages according to their specific need. The most common forms are Json, XML and plain text, but in theory any format can be used.

This leads us to another advantage: almost always web services that use REST are more "lightweight" and therefore faster.

The problem with REST may arise precisely because of its advantages. As the definition of the data body is entirely up to the developer, interoperability problems are more common.

Source: Web Service Type Differences: SOAP, REST, XML