Lesson 4 of 7
Webhooks: the instant trigger
6 min read
What if your flow could start the very instant something happens — not three, five, or fifteen minutes later, when it next bothered to check?
Two ways to catch an event
Most triggers poll: the platform asks an app "anything new?" every few minutes. It works, but there's always a wait. A webhook flips it around — the app pushes the event to your flow the moment it happens. It's a phone number your flow hands out; when something occurs, the app calls it right away.
Polling checks on a timer; a webhook is pushed the instant an event happens. Same result — far faster.
The reverse API
A normal API call is you asking an app for something. A webhook is the reverse: the app calls you. You give it a web address (a URL); it sends a little packet of data to that address whenever the event fires, and your flow wakes up and runs. That's why people call it a "reverse API".
A webhook is an incoming doorbell, not an outgoing question. You don't fetch the event — it comes to you.
Reach for a webhook when instant matters — a payment, a new signup, an urgent alert. For everything else, polling every few minutes is perfectly fine.
The shape of it
- —Polling checks an app on a timer; there's always a small delay.
- —A webhook is pushed by the app the instant the event happens.
- —It's a "reverse API": the app calls your URL, instead of you calling the app.
What makes a webhook faster than a polling trigger?
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