You should use the services that I describe in this chapter when you are performing data operations on a RESTful API. You may initially prefer to use the $http service to make Ajax requests, especially if you are coming from a jQuery background. To that end, I describe the use of $http at the start of the chapter, before explaining its limitations when used with REST and the advantages of using the $resource service as an alternative.
Source: Freeman Adam (2014), Pro AngularJS (Expert’s Voice in Web Development), Apress; 1st ed. edition.