What are webhooks?

This post provides a comprehensive technical explanation of webhooks, detailing their architecture, components (event source, event, endpoint, payload, subscriber, HTTP request/response, security, delivery/retry mechanisms), and how they differ from API polling. It outlines the step-by-step process of how webhooks work and enumerates their benefits (real-time data, lightweight payloads, workflow automation, efficiency, customization, flexibility, scalability, reliability, simple setup). Finally, it details common use cases such as monitoring and incident management, infrastructure and workflow automation, event-driven automation, real-time notifications, and data integration.