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Anubhav Sharma
Anubhav Sharma

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The Anubhav portal was launched in March 2015 at the behest of the Hon'ble Prime Minister for retiring government officials to leave a record of their experiences while in Govt service .

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1 Answers

Anubhav Sharma
Anubhav Sharma 08 Jan 2026
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There are 5 main types of APIs:

  1. REST API
  2. SOAP API
  3. GraphQL API
  4. gRPC API
  5. WebSocket API

(Plus internal/private APIs, public APIs, partner APIs, etc.)

1. REST API (Representational State Transfer)

REST is the most commonly used API type on the web. It uses standard HTTP methods to allow communication between a client and a server.

Key Points

  • Uses HTTP methods: GET, POST, PUT, DELETE
  • Data format: JSON (mostly), XML
  • Stateless communication

Use Case

  • Web applications
  • Mobile apps
  • Public APIs

Example

GET /api/users

2. SOAP API (Simple Object Access Protocol)

SOAP is a protocol-based API with strict standards and strong security features. It uses XML for communication.

Key Points

  1. Uses XML only
  2. Highly structured and strict
  3. Built-in security (WS-Security)

Use Case

  • Banking systems
  • Enterprise applications
  • Legacy systems

Example

<soap:Envelope>
  <soap:Body>
    <GetUserDetails/>
  </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

3. GraphQL API

GraphQL allows clients to request only the data they need, reducing over-fetching and under-fetching of data.

Key Points

  • Single endpoint
  • Client controls data shape
  • Strongly typed schema

Use Case

  • Complex UI applications
  • Mobile apps with limited bandwidth
  • Microservices aggregation

Example

{
  user {
    name
    email
  }
}

4. gRPC API

gRPC is a high-performance API framework developed by Google. It uses Protocol Buffers and HTTP/2.

Key Points

  1. Binary data (smaller, faster)
  2. Strongly typed contracts
  3. Supports streaming

Use Case

  1. Microservices communication
  2. Real-time systems
  3. High-performance backend services

Example

service UserService {
  rpc GetUser (UserRequest) returns (UserResponse);
}

5. WebSocket API

WebSocket provides real-time, two-way communication between client and server over a single persistent connection.

Key Points

  1. Full-duplex communication
  2. No repeated HTTP requests
  3. Low latency

Use Case

  1. Chat applications
  2. Live notifications
  3. Real-time dashboards

Example

const socket = new WebSocket("wss://example.com/chat");

Summary Table

API Type Best For Data Format
REST Web & Mobile apps JSON
SOAP Enterprise systems XML
GraphQL Flexible data fetching JSON
gRPC High-performance services Protobuf
WebSocket Real-time communication JSON / Binary
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