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Polling involves repeatedly requesting data from a server, which can be resource-intensive and inefficient. Webhooks, on the other hand, offer a real-time, push-based approach where a server notifies a client when new data is available. Polling can lead to missed real-time updates, while webhooks are more efficient and suitable for scenarios requiring immediate notifications. Each approach has use cases: polling for frequent but non-real-time data updates, and webhooks for scenarios where real-time data is crucial.

Polling Vs Webhooks

Polling or webhook, that’s the question

tl;dr
use webhooks when you need Real-Time Updates, like chat applications, and any service that requires immediate notifications.
use polling when data is frequently updated but you don’t need real-time notifications, because using webhooks for every event can be resource-intensive. For example, a social media app that wants to report on its user base might be overwhelmed with webhooks if many users sign up in quick succession.

“A webhook is a lightweight, event-driven communication that automatically sends data between applications via HTTP” - RedHat.
The author has got it wrong or the article is not clear, because you cant have a webhook at the client. You can call a webhook from the client. So in conclusion, you cant send a notification to the client using a webhook (unless you poll the webhook😂)

One thing that wasn’t touched on, one would think - “Why even use polling ever?” Well the cons of Webhooks is they can be lossy, data could be missed due to an outage on the receiver end, whereas polling has the pro of having retries built-in and can be more resilient. That being said, of course it’s great to have options when implementing a data delivery strategy.

i new with polling but often to use webhook, good article!