SOAP Web Services vs Jakarta REST
Replace heavyweight SOAP/WSDL endpoints with clean Jakarta REST resources returning JSON.
@WebService
public class UserWebService {
@WebMethod
public UserResponse getUser(
@WebParam(name = "id") String id) {
User user = findUser(id);
UserResponse res = new UserResponse();
res.setId(user.getId());
res.setName(user.getName());
return res;
}
}
@Path("/users")
@Produces(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
public class UserResource {
@Inject
UserService userService;
@GET
@Path("/{id}")
public User getUser(@PathParam("id") String id) {
return userService.findById(id);
}
}
Lighter payloads
JSON is more compact than SOAP XML envelopes, reducing bandwidth and parsing overhead.
Simple annotations
@GET, @Path, and @Produces replace WSDL, @WebService, and @WebMethod ceremony.
Microservice-ready
REST/JSON is the standard for service-to-service communication in cloud-native architectures.
Widely available since Jakarta EE 8 / Java 11
SOAP-based web services rely on WSDL contracts, XML marshalling, and JAX-WS annotations that add significant overhead. Jakarta REST (formerly JAX-RS) uses intuitive annotations like @GET, @Path, and @Produces to expose RESTful JSON APIs. The programming model is simpler, the payloads are smaller, and the approach aligns with how modern microservices communicate.