Polling vs webhooks: when to use one over the other
Blog post from Merge
Merge's content explores the differences between polling and webhooks, two methods for retrieving data in applications. Polling involves making repeated API calls to check for data updates, offering availability and flexibility, but lacking real-time capabilities and often being wasteful and unadaptable. Webhooks, on the other hand, notify an application of events as they occur, providing real-time data and cost-effectiveness, despite potential reliability issues and limited functionality. The article suggests using webhooks for scenarios requiring extremely fresh data with infrequent updates, while polling is recommended when frequent updates are needed and webhooks are unsupported. Merge's Unified API platform helps streamline the integration process by allowing easy configuration of both methods, simplifying various integration tasks and enabling scalable integrations.
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