Best approach to share the document ( image, pdf ) to external system from Appian

We have use case where currently we are sharing the document to external system via Appian Web API ( created through existing Appian API document download template ). External system is requesting to share the data as base64 string. We could achieve same via plugin available in App Market  ( [mention:e7b082a6b98049899e3541011e57f30e:f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07] ). I wanted to confirm what are the advantages and disadvantages of sharing document via base64 string over existing approach.

If anyone used base64 string encoded method to share document, can you share the advantages, and disadvantages over the approach.