Webhooks are automatic messages that one application sends to another the moment a specific event happens. Instead of your software repeatedly asking ‘anything new yet?’, the source system pushes a small packet of data to a web address you control, the second the thing occurs.
Think of it like a doorbell versus checking the peephole every minute. Polling means you keep walking to the door to look. A webhook is the visitor pressing the bell: you only get notified when there is actually someone there. So when a customer pays in Stripe or fills in a form, that platform fires a webhook and your system reacts right away. Most tools use this pattern to kick off a workflow automation without delay. Stripe alone can send dozens of event types this way, from payment_intent.succeeded to charge.refunded.
Under the hood a webhook is just an HTTP POST request carrying a small bit of data, usually in JSON. It is one of the simplest ways to connect two platforms, and it is closely tied to the broader idea of an API. The main thing to get right is reliability. Events should be verified with a signature, retried if delivery fails, and logged so you can trace exactly what arrived and when. Miss that, and a single dropped payment alert can leave an order stuck for days before anyone notices.
At TopDevs we build webhook receivers with signature checks and retry handling, so a client’s tools talk to each other instantly and no event ever slips through unnoticed.
