Webhooks vs Polling: How Systems Actually Exchange Real-Time Data

Polling means one system repeatedly asks another 'has anything changed?' on a fixed schedule — every minute, every five minutes, whatever's set. It's simple to implement and works with almost any system, but it introduces a delay equal to however often the check happens, and wastes resources checking when nothing's actually changed.

A webhook flips the model — instead of asking repeatedly, a system registers to be notified the moment something happens, and the source system pushes that notification out immediately. This is far more efficient and delivers near-instant updates, but it requires the source system to actually support sending webhooks, which not every platform does.

For anything time-sensitive — a security alert, an equipment fault — the difference between a webhook (near-instant) and polling every five minutes (up to a five-minute delay) is genuinely significant. Where a platform supports webhooks, that's almost always the right integration method for critical alerts; polling is reserved for less time-sensitive data or systems that simply don't offer the alternative.