Why should prefer REST based services over SOAP

1-REST permits many different data formats whereas SOAP only permits XML.

2-JSON usually is a better fit for data and parses much faster. REST allows
 better support for browser clients due to its support for JSON. 

3-REST has better performance and scalability. 

 4-REST reads can be cached, SOAP based reads cannot be cached.

 5-SOAP is a protocol its Simple Object Access Protocol and rest is an Architecture .REST stands for Representational State Transfer. 

1. The RESTful Web services are completely stateless. This can be tested by restarting the server and checking if the interactions are able to survive. 

2. Restful services provide a good caching infrastructure over HTTP GET method (for most servers). This can improve the performance, if the data the Web service returns is not altered frequently and not dynamic in nature. 

3. The service producer and service consumer need to have a common understanding of the context as well as the content being passed along as there is no standard set of rules to describe the REST Web services interface. 

4. REST is particularly useful for restricted-profile devices such as mobile and PDAs for which the overhead of additional parameters like headers and other SOAP elements are less.

 5. REST services are easy to integrate with the existing websites and are exposed with XML so the HTML pages can consume the same with ease. There is hardly any need to refactor the existing website architecture. This makes developers more productive and comfortable as they will not have to rewrite everything from scratch and just need to add on the existing functionality.

 7. REST permits many different data formats where as SOAP only permits XML. 

6. REST-based implementation is simple compared to SOAP.