Webhooks Review

A webhook is just an event that's sent to your server by an external service. There are just a couple of things to keep in mind when building a webhook handler:

• The third-party system will probably retry requests multiple times, so your handler should be idempotent.
• Be extra careful to never "acknowledge" a webhook request unless you processed it successfully. By sending a 2XX code, you're telling the third-party system that you processed the request successfully, and they'll stop retrying it.
• When you're writing a server, you typically get to define the API. However, when you're integrating a webhook from a service like Stripe, you'll probably need to adhere to their API: they'll tell you what shape the events will be sent in.

Are Webhooks and Websockets the Same Thing?

Nope! A websocket is a persistent connection between a client and a server. Websockets are typically used for real-time communication, like chat apps. Webhooks are a one-way communication from a third-party service to your server.

We'll talk about websockets in a future course.

Click to play video