VietMX Staff asked 3 years ago
The .Net framework has a number of technologies that allow you to create HTTP services such as Web Service, WCF and now Web API. There are a lot of articles over the internet which may describe to whom you should use.
Web Service
- It is based on SOAP and return data in XML form.
- It support only HTTP protocol.
- It is not open source but can be consumed by any client that understands xml.
- It can be hosted only on IIS.
WCF
- It is also based on SOAP and return data in XML form.
- It is the evolution of the web service(ASMX) and support various protocols like TCP, HTTP, HTTPS, Named Pipes, MSMQ.
- The main issue with WCF is, its tedious and extensive configuration.
- It is not open source but can be consumed by any client that understands xml.
- It can be hosted with in the applicaion or on IIS or using window service.
WCF Rest
- To use WCF as WCF Rest service you have to enable webHttpBindings.
- It support HTTP GET and POST verbs by WebGet and WebInvoke attributes respectively.
- To enable other HTTP verbs you have to do some configuration in IIS to accept request of that particular verb on .svc files
- Passing data through parameters using a WebGet needs configuration. The UriTemplate must be specified.
- It support XML, JSON and ATOM data format.
Web API
- This is the new framework for building HTTP services with easy and simple way.
- Web API is open source an ideal platform for building REST-ful services over the .NET Framework.
- Unlike WCF Rest service, it use the full feature of HTTP (like URIs, request/response headers, caching, versioning, various content formats)
- It also supports the MVC features such as routing, controllers, action results, filter, model binders, IOC container or dependency injection, unit testing
