WEB API and WCF

Check this article for differences and when to use webapi or wcf.

 

https://www.guru99.com/wcf-web-api-difference.html

 Key differences;

• WCF offers request-reply, one-way, or duplex while Web API is by default request-reply only.
• WCF is used for developing SOAP-based services whereas Web API is used for both SOAP-based and RESTful services.
• WCF does not offer any support for MVC features whereas Web API supports MVC features.
• WCF supports HTTP, UDP, and custom transport protocol whereas Web API supports only HTTP protocol.
• WCF offers Text, MTOM, and Binary Encoding support whereas Web API supports the UTF-8 encoding format.
• WCF supports message queues, message security, duplex communication, transaction whereas Web API doesn’t support.
• WCF stands for Windows Communication Foundation whereas API stands for Application Program Interface.

 

WCF usually uses SOA architecture means SOAP protocol , which means it uses SOAP envelop to transfer messages.

On internet everything is a resource 

for example an image of dog is a resource.

a video on sprituality is a resource.

an employee information with id 105 of a particular company is a resource.

But earlier means before rest we used to think in terms of Action like getImage , getEmployeeById, getDog etc

which was very normal for programmers , we usually think in terms of action but it was not very correct 

http is the oldest and most reliable protocol which says everything is a resource so 

a url like http://domain.com/getEmloyee/2 doesn't replicate what Http really says , if you follow http principles then your url should be  http://domain.com/Emloyee/2 , now the url repersents a resource , an employee of Id 2 and not an action , this is one contraint of REST.

Similarly utlilizing other http features like content negotiation , status codes , stateless etc when all these are followed religiously then we say we have developed a REST service.

 

I think you got the idea , that when we human negotiate for price of a thing then why not content type of a resource why always get XML when we could get Json or XML whatever we like. all these achieved with REST and is not possible with SOAP.

Means WCF follows SOAP , Web API follows rest.