SOAP stands for Simple Object Access Protocol. REST stands for Representational State Transfer.

SOAP is a XML based messaging protocol and REST is not a protocol but an architectural style.

SOAP has a standard specification but there is none for REST.

Whole of the web works based on REST style architecture. Consider a shared resource repository and consumers access the resources.

Even SOAP based web services can be implemented in RESTful style. REST is a concept that does not tie with any protocols.

SOAP is distributed computing style and REST is web style (web is also a distributed computing model).

REST messages should be self-contained and should help consumer in controlling the interaction between provider and consumer (example, links in message to decide the next course of action). But SOAP doesn’t has any such requirements.