How do Apex web service methods perform compared to individual API calls?

Apex web service methods are integrated tightly with the Salesforce platform, enabling them to execute efficiently within the Salesforce environment. When compared to individual API calls, these web service methods indeed perform fewer roundtrips between the client and the server. This is because they allow for batch processing and can handle multiple requests in a single transaction, thereby reducing the number of separate calls that need to be made.

In conventional API interactions, each request and response cycle can involve significant overhead due to network latency, serialization, and deserialization costs. In contrast, invoking an Apex web service method can streamline this process by allowing for multiple operations to be executed in one go. This not only enhances performance but also ensures that the interactions are more efficient, as it minimizes the impact of network delays and reduces the total time taken for data transfer.

Additionally, using Apex web services can also lead to better utilization of resources on the server by consolidating actions, which can result in quicker processing times for bulk operations. Overall, this approach enhances the performance of data handling within Salesforce.