APIs and Web Services: What's the Difference?

What is the difference between APIs and Web Services? The short answer is that for the most common definitions of these terms, Web Services are a specific kind of APIs that use a technology stack that almost always includes SOAP and WSDL, and possibly UDDI as well.
But, as all non-trivial questions in real-world IT, the correct answer is always "it depends". For this reason we take a look back at the history of the terms, which for APIs goes as far back as 1968, whereas for Web Services this only goes back to 1998. XML-RPC was the first "Web Service technology", but never took off in a big way. SOAP/WSDL did, but it also suffered from what many found to be too complicated ways as how to use these kinds of Web Services.
Starting in 2001, JSON "Web Services" started becoming popular, and most importantly because of their simplicity. For this reason, oftentimes the term "Web Service" was avoided and people starting just calling them "APIs", because Roy Fielding has introduced the idea of "Network APIs" in his dissertation from 2000. From then on, oftentimes APIs are used to talk about a more general idea of network-capable interfaces, whereas Web Services often refer to the specific SOAP/WSDL technology stack.
But it all depends on the conversation. If you ever have to answer this question, make sure you understand the context and what's referred to by the two names. Only then will you be able to give a meaningful answer that makes sense both for the one asking the question, and for the one answering it.
00:00 Introduction
00:25 Short answer
01:23 The history of APIs
02:40 The history of Web services
04:00 The history of SOAP
06:05 The history of JSON
07:09 The API space keeps evolving
08:00 What can we learn from this history?
09:00 Always ask about the context of the question
10:06 A better version of the original short answer
10:41 Wrapping it up

[@arpanbaishya5888]

Erik, Thank you so much for making this video!! It helped me a great deal to understand the timeline associated with these terms and also helped resolved much of the confusion that I had before watching this.

[@ErikWilde]

you're welcome, @arpan, good to hear that the video was helpful for you!

[@HimanshuGupta-jx4nk]

Thank you, Sir! These terms are used in learning any new technologies but are hardly explained and cause a lot of confusion. Thank you for making such informative videos.

[@musamehdiyevv]

Thank you for the great content

[@ErikWilde]

@@musamehdiyevv, thanks for watching!

[@taar]

Thank you. this was clear and simple to understand

[@ErikWilde]

That's good to hear, thanks!

[@NishthaJindal1111]

thanks for making this! Very helpful 👍

[@ErikWilde]

Thank you!!

[@funkyboy4882]

I found this channel helpful, thank u

[@kamilp1567]

Great approach, context helped me a lot with understanding this, thanks!

[@ErikWilde]

thanks, @kamil! it seems like many things in tech could use a bit more context.

[@GetachewSeyoumGebrezgi]

Thank you so much!

[@PierreRoehrs]

Best explanation ever!

[@ErikWilde]

Thanks a lot!

[@oo7ankit]

Very well explained thankyou

[@korbennnn]

Thank you. Very educational content.

[@def1963]

I do like more you definition of API in "APIs and Microservices: ..." (api is a design/ documentation and web services are implementations). Back in 80s-90s we used the term API in relation to description of module's o function's interface only.

[@ErikWilde]

thanks for the feedback. it's always tricky comparing and contrasting things. for the microservices video, it was all about implementation versus interface. for this one here, it's all about one specific style of defining interface versus the general practice of using them.

[@tmaria.claudia]

Great video! Thank you!

[@DigsWigs2022]

Thank you!!

[@lholhofox]

Amazing! thank you!!

[@medredsr2641]

thank you so much

[@Diegoad1]

Thank you!

[@carsonjamesiv2512]

👍