Which statement accurately describes REST in contrast to SOAP?

• A. REST is designed to be stateful and not cacheable
• B. REST reads cannot be cached
• C. SOAP is faster than REST in all cases
• D. REST is designed to be stateless and reads can be cached for performance

Answer: (D)

REST is designed around stateless interactions and the ability to cache safe operations to boost performance. In REST, the server does not retain client state between requests; each request contains all the information the server needs to process it. This statelessness makes scaling easier because servers don’t have to manage session data across multiple requests.

Because REST uses HTTP, reads (GET requests) can be cached by clients and intermediaries when the responses include proper cache-control headers or validators (like ETag or Last-Modified). This caching is a key performance benefit of REST, since repeated fetches of the same resource can be served from the cache instead of hitting the server every time.

So describing REST as stateless and cacheable for reads accurately reflects its design and how its performance can be optimized.

The other statements misrepresent REST or SOAP. REST is not inherently stateful or non-cacheable, and reads can be cached with the right HTTP headers. SOAP, on the other hand, is not universally faster than REST; it often involves heavier XML envelopes and more processing, which can impact performance depending on the scenario.