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Use webhooks when a service supports the events your application needs and you want timely updates without repeatedly checking its API. Use polling when you need information only occasionally, monitor a small set of resources, or the provider lacks a suitable webhook. The decision depends on event coverage, freshness needs, API limits, and whether your team can operate a secure, reliable webhook receiver.
Webhooks vs polling: What is the difference?
The communication direction is the key distinction. With a webhook, a provider sends an event notification to a server your application exposes after an event occurs. With polling, your application makes API requests at intervals to ask whether relevant information has changed or become available. GitHub describes webhooks as a way to receive near-real-time updates, while Shopify describes them as a performant alternative to continuous polling for changes.
Neither approach guarantees a universal delivery time. A webhook can arrive when a subscribed event occurs, subject to the provider’s delivery behavior; polling can discover a change only when the next check runs and the API reports it.
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| Decision factor | Webhooks | Polling |
|---|---|---|
| Update urgency | Useful for timely, event-driven updates when the provider supports the needed subscription. Delivery timing depends on the provider. | Freshness depends on how often you check and on the provider’s API behavior. |
| Resources and request volume | Subscriptions can avoid repeated checks that return no new information, especially when monitoring many resources. | Repeated requests grow with the number of resources and how frequently you check; use the provider’s limits and guidance. |
| Event coverage | Works only for events the provider exposes through subscriptions. | Can be appropriate when the API exposes the needed state but no suitable event subscription exists. |
| Operational responsibility | Requires a reachable endpoint, authenticity checks, prompt acknowledgments, and a plan for failed or missed deliveries. | Requires a deliberate schedule, efficient requests, and handling of rate limits and retry guidance. |
| Typical fit | Changes that matter promptly, particularly across many monitored resources. | Occasional checks, a small resource set, or a provider without relevant webhooks. |
Choose webhooks for event-driven updates
Webhooks are a strong fit when the provider can notify your application about the specific events it needs and your system should react without waiting for a recurring check. GitHub notes that an API call may be sufficient when information is needed once or intermittently, or when only a small set of resources is being monitored with no plan to scale. For a larger or more event-driven workload, subscriptions can reduce unnecessary polling effort and resource use.
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Choose polling for occasional checks or missing events
Polling remains reasonable when updates are not urgent, the resource set is limited, or the provider does not offer an appropriate subscription. It can also be useful as a way to query current state. The trade-off is that frequent checks can create unnecessary requests, while infrequent checks delay discovery.
How do I avoid polling an API too often?
Set polling frequency from the freshness your application actually needs, then follow the specific provider’s instructions. GitHub’s REST API guidance recommends a fixed schedule, honoring an x-poll-interval header when one is provided, using authenticated conditional requests, and limiting requests to the data needed.
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- Use a deliberate schedule: avoid a tight, constant loop when users do not need updates that often.
- Honor provider instructions: use a supplied interval such as
x-poll-intervalwhen applicable. - Make requests efficient: use authenticated conditional requests and request only relevant fields or data where the API supports it.
- Handle rate limits: follow the provider’s retry guidance rather than immediately repeating a rejected request. Slack documents HTTP 429 responses and a
Retry-Afterheader for its HTTP APIs, including incoming webhooks. Slack also notes that limits are method-specific and can change; its behavior should not be assumed to apply to other providers.
What does operating a webhook require?
A webhook moves repeated checking out of the consumer, but it makes the consumer responsible for receiving and handling provider-initiated requests. Follow the actual provider’s security and delivery contract; GitHub’s recommendations include:
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- Use the provider’s signing secret or equivalent verification, and use HTTPS with certificate verification. A public endpoint URL by itself does not prove a request is authentic.
- Check the event type and action before triggering application behavior.
- Acknowledge requests promptly. GitHub advises responding within 10 seconds; this is GitHub-specific guidance, not a universal webhook standard.
- Understand how the provider handles failures and missed deliveries, and use its redelivery mechanism where needed. GitHub recommends redelivering missed deliveries.
GitHub names Hookdeck and queue libraries such as Resque, RQ, and RabbitMQ as examples relevant to webhook delivery handling. Those examples do not establish that any one tool is required; choose an approach that fits your architecture and the provider’s delivery requirements.
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How should you plan for failures and recovery?
Do not assume that a webhook provider guarantees exactly-once delivery or that every provider uses the same retry policy. Check its documentation for delivery attempts, timeouts, redelivery, and how to inspect failed deliveries. Likewise, polling does not by itself guarantee that your application has a complete or current view; its reliability depends on the API and your schedule.
Whether you use webhooks, polling, or both, define how the application detects and responds to missing or delayed information. The reviewed provider guidance supports learning the webhook redelivery process and polling efficiently, but it does not establish one universal design for reconciling webhook events against API state. Choose recovery behavior based on the provider’s documented guarantees and the consequences of missing an update.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why there is no universal winner
There is no cross-provider latency, quota, or cost figure that makes one pattern categorically better. Event coverage, rate limits, delivery semantics, and retry behavior vary by service and can change. Check the documentation for the specific API you use, then weigh how fresh the information must be against the requests and operational work each option entails.
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