--- title: What is a Webhook? | daily.dev description: An explanation of webhooks contrasted with polling, using a texting analogy to show how webhooks push events instead of requiring repeated requests. Covers... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-a-webhook--ju4ixyo65 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: What is a Webhook? | daily.dev og:description: An explanation of webhooks contrasted with polling, using a texting analogy to show how webhooks push events instead of requiring repeated requests. Covers... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-a-webhook--ju4ixyo65 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/Ju4IXyo65.png og:image:alt: What is a Webhook? og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # What is a Webhook? **[KodeKloud's Squad](https://daily.dev/sources/kodekloud)** · [@kodekloud](https://daily.dev/kodekloud) · 2 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary An explanation of webhooks contrasted with polling, using a texting analogy to show how webhooks push events instead of requiring repeated requests. Covers practical realities like duplicate or out-of-order deliveries, retry behavior on failed delivery, the need for signature verification to prevent spoofed events, and the risk of missed events when a receiving app is offline. Concludes that robust systems combine webhooks for speed with polling as a fallback for reliability. ## Content Imagine texting a friend "are you here yet?" every 30 seconds until they arrive. That's polling. Your app keeps asking the service "anything new?" and the answer is almost always "nope." Every question costs something, and by the time you finally get a "yes," it already happened a while ago. A webhook flips it around. You hand the service your address once. When something happens, it comes to you. No asking. No waiting. The diagram keeps it simple, so here's what a real setup adds on top. That arrow is an attempt, not a promise. The same event can show up twice, and two events can arrive out of order. So your app should be able to receive the same message twice and not do the work twice. "Instantly" means fast, not magic. If the first delivery fails, the service tries again a few moments later. And your address has to be locked. Anyone who knows your URL can send you fake events unless you check the signature that proves it really came from the service. The part the picture can't show: if your app is offline when the event fires, the news just passes you by. That's why polling never fully dies. Good systems use webhooks for speed and a slow background check for safety. Webhooks tell you fast. Polling tells you for sure. You want both. What's the first webhook you ever set up? 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A Simple Explanation for Beginners](https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-a-webhook-a-simple-explanation-for-beginners-5bkcihtgl) · Kilo Blog · 6 upvotes · 1 comments - [Polling or Webhooks](https://daily.dev/posts/polling-or-webhooks-fom6ptk1f) · System Design Codex · 3 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#career](https://daily.dev/tags/career) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-a-webhook--ju4ixyo65) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DiscussionForumPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-a-webhook--ju4ixyo65","headline":"What is a Webhook?","text":"An explanation of webhooks contrasted with polling, using a texting analogy to show how webhooks push events instead of requiring repeated requests. 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