Choose webhooks when a provider can notify you of relevant changes and the business needs prompt updates. Choose polling when you must request changes periodically, the provider lacks suitable events or scheduled processing is sufficient. Many integrations benefit from event notifications plus a separate reconciliation process.
How the two approaches work
A webhook sends a notification to your receiving endpoint after an event. Polling asks an API for changes at a chosen interval. Neither choice removes the need to validate data, protect access and handle failures.
For example, an order team may need a cancellation quickly to avoid packing an item. A daily management report may tolerate a scheduled update. Agree the business delay first, then select a delivery mechanism the provider actually supports.
When webhooks fit
Webhooks are useful when relevant events exist and your receiver can be operated reliably. Confirm event coverage, authentication, retry behavior, payload meaning and how to retrieve the latest record. A notification may describe a change without containing every field you need.
Do not assume one notification equals one unique, correctly ordered business action. Stripe’s webhook documentation, for example, describes duplicate deliveries and does not guarantee event ordering. Check the equivalent guarantees for your own provider.
When polling fits
Polling can suit systems with a change-query API, batch workflows or no relevant webhook. The interval must respect acceptable delay and request limits. A shorter interval increases requests even when nothing changes.
Use the provider’s supported cursor, pagination or change marker. Advance a checkpoint only after successfully processing the relevant results. Plan for records updated while pages are being read; a simple timestamp query is not automatically a complete synchronization strategy.
Why a hybrid design can help
Use notifications to start timely work and a scheduled comparison to find missing or inconsistent records. The comparison should examine business identifiers and states, not just the number of received messages. Where events may be stale, retrieve current data according to the provider’s model before applying a change.
A hybrid approach adds operating work, so use it where the consequence of missing a change justifies it. Assign ownership for exceptions and keep replay actions safe from creating duplicate records.
Five questions before implementation
- Which exact changes must reach the other system?
- How much delay can each workflow tolerate?
- What does the provider promise about delivery and history?
- How will outages, duplicates and missing records be detected?
- Who reconciles exceptions and proves recovery worked?
Document these answers in the API integration requirements checklist. For implementation planning, explore our API integration service and contact us with the source and destination systems.