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HTTP vs REST vs Open API

The are three different connector and you may wonder which one is the “best”:

  • The HTTP connector: works!

  • Configuration is flexible but sometimes a bit of effort.

  • Manual query parameter encoding.

    • Mitigate using the UrlBuilder script

  • There are some known “issues” (where you must know how to use it, like the empty body topic or authentication issue) - but in general: it works.

  • It supports different authorizations out of the box: None, BASIC, Bearer, etc.

  • The PATCH Client is no longer available, and you will have to chose the REST connector for that (costs the customer a second license).

If you don’t need the PATCH method, I would recommend using the HTTP Connector.

  • The REST connector is buggy (it forgets all you configuration work when you change something on the related operation) - JIRA Ticket (DEV Team) pending

  • I’ll probably save you some time in configuration and the configuration is a bit more user-friendly than HTTP (where you have to deal with replacement variables).

  • I am not sure about automatic Query parameter encoding, which is “painful” with HTTP. It seems the REST Connector does this encoding automatically, no script required.

I would recommend not using it for now, unless you need it for the PATCH**!** However, you may give it a try and make up your own opinion.

  • The Open API Connector sounded very good, however it has zero flexibility.

  • It “imports” an operation based on an Open API description (Swagger) and you cannot change anything on it.

  • I wanted to add a customer header but the operation was not explicitly annotated to allow custom header in the Open API description, and I was done! Nothing you can do about it.

  • If if you can omit the “Import” to “do it yourself” I haven’t found a way to configure anything myself on an Open API operation.

If the “imported” (auto created) operation is good for your use-case, you may give the Open-API Connector a try, if you have an API that exposes a (valid) swagger.json (Open API) description. Personally, I haven’t had yet an API that could be used with Boomi’s Open-API Connector and my fall-back was: HTTP.

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