What would be the advantage of using WebAPI over WCF Rest and vice-versa?
If I had to implement a RESTFUL service today, what would be the most preferable method of providing the service?
Simply, because WCF REST is no longer supported. It was there before asp.net offers a decent REST support : It's now the case with Web Api.
One of the main advantage of asp.net Web Api is the similitude with the well known asp.net MVC style programming
WCF was originally created to enable SOAP-based services. WCF REST is a non-trivial mix between two differents worlds : SOAP & REST.
This question is still pertinent when you want to expose service, but for a REST-like api, do not hesitate one second.
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I am little confused about these two technologies ie WCF REST and asp.net WEB API. Is there any difference between these two? When should use one over the other?
I am little confused about these two technologies ie WCF REST and asp.net WEB API. Is there any difference between these two?
Yes. Both are a means to providing REST-style services however the competing technologies are not created equal.
WCF REST naturally comes from the WCF world which is originally SOAP. WCF REST changes that by providing a rudimentary JSON payload instead of SOAP. However WCF REST is missing certain features and Microsoft has said that newer REST features will only make its way into ASP.NET Web API.
Unlike WCF REST, ASP.NET Web API has been designed from the ground up for REST-style JSON services.
MSDN:
Although WCF provides some support for writing REST-style services, the support for REST in ASP.NET Web API is more complete and all future REST feature improvements will be made in ASP.NET Web API. If you have an existing WCF service and you want to expose additional REST endpoints, use WCF and the WebHttpBinding. - Tell me more
OP:
When should use one over the other?
If your intent is to create SOAP services, or you have an existing WCF service, use WCF with a JSON encoding endpoint.
If your intent is to create REST services, particularly in a new application, then use ASP.NET Web API.
It depends what you want to do for choose one of them
Basically with the WCF you can create service based applications
but with ASP.NET Web Api you can create Restful services based on Http or Https.
REST and WCF are the meanings from different worlds :) REST is a specification (in other words the set of conventions) for developing the web-services. REST doesn't depends on some special technology / platform / framework or language. WCF is Microsoft approach for web-services, natively predifined to develope SOAP-services, which are based on RPC-architecture. RPC (remote procedure call) is an approach to develope web-services as a set of methods with parameters, which are doing some work. REST is more HTTP-oriented and the main concept is to operate with some entities (Representational State Transfer) and perform actions to this entities, but not just call some methods. It is possible to build some REST-service using WCF technology, but in my opinion, WCF isn't a good way for this goal.
I have experience in developing Restful web service using WCF. For the next project, I am considering Web API because that is the latest technology.
During my search, I found that an important reason for Web API recommendation is that it is Restful and can be accessed by HTTP protocol.
But we can also use WCF to create a restful web service that can be consumed even by mobile devices. I understand that to create a restful service using WCF, there is extra configuration involved, but besides that are there any other reasons for preferring Web API over WCF?
In other words, does Web API provide an exact subset of WCF functionality, or is there something you can do with Web API that you cannot do with a WCF service exposed as restful?
Since last few months this Asp.Net Web API seems to be an highlighted product from Microsoft. Is it an alternative to WS* Service. How is it different than WCF Service? And where can we see it as a best fit in web application development?
ASP.NET Web API is a framework for building web services that are exposed over HTTP. It is very well suited to (but not limited to) building RESTful web services.
Such web services are an alternative to building a SOAP RPC / WS* web services in that they are simpler, more light weight, and there's less coupling between client and server.
A traditional "WCF Service" supports SOAP RPC as opposed to REST, and these services tend to be complex and to have a tight coupling between client and server. Wide interoperability can become difficult to achieve. However, a traditional WCF Service can communicate over a wide variety of protocols - TCP being a particularly useful one for internal services (services in the same DMZ).
(While WCF is mostly associated with SOAP RPC-style services, there are at least three attempts in WCF to support the building of RESTful web services. These attempts have all been superseded by the ASP.NET Web API.)
ASP.NET Web API is a best fit for producing public facing RESTful web services - aka Hypermedia APIs - over HTTP. To do this, having a good understanding of the REST architectural style is important before you start using the ASP.NET Web API. See such books as "REST in Practice", "The RESTful Web Services Cookbook" and "Building Hypermedia APIs with HTML5 and Node".
Difference between ASP.net Web API and WCF API
Web service is a part of WCF. WCF offers much more flexibility and portability to develop a service when comparing to web service. Still we are having more advantages over Web service, following table provides detailed difference between them.
What are the pros and cons of using each technology?
WCF Web Api is now merged into Asp.net
Asp.net web api now supports self hosting.
I still imagine if I want to expose multiple protocol schemas for the same operation I would still lean towards WCF or can Mvc end point do this too?
Also does the new Asp.Net web api expose Wsdl? If not how would the client figure out what operation is available to them?
Arguably the best feature of Mvc is the modelbinder. How robust is the WCF equivalent?
So can someone tell me what advantage does the Asp.net web api bring to the table? WCF seems overwhelmingly the more powerful/scalable choice, imo. About the only thing the Mvc Web Api has over the WCF model is probably ease of development, but that means squat if it ends up being a serious design limitation down the road.
First, I suggest you read my post on the subject:
http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/idof/archive/2012/03/05/wcf-or-asp-net-web-apis-my-two-cents-on-the-subject.aspx
Regarding your WSDL question - since the WebApi does not use SOAP, it does not require a WSDL, and does not export one. You can use Hypermedia to return resources with a list of possible activity URLs (think of it as a self-describing resource)
The choice depends on what we want to do.
ASP.NET Web API is a framework for building non-SOAP based services over HTTP only - so there aren't more transport protocols available using this framework.
WCF / Windows Communication Foundation is a framework for exchanging SOAP-based messages - here we use a lot of transport protocols: HTTP, TCP, Named pipes, MSMQ, etc...
I am not sure about which one has better performance regarding the amount of data, maybe WCF since we can use low protocols. Any comments are appreciated.
The WCF Web API primarily focuses on REST implementations. If you are setting up a REST implementation, the standard WCF bits are a bit of a pain in the rear. If you are setting up RESTful services, you will find the WCF Web API a much nicer experience. If you are setting up SOAP services, then the WCF Web API is not your best friend, and you are better off using WCF for your services.
Use WCF for intranet/B2B sites n Web API for B2C/C2C/internet sites...SOAP/XML is still the standard for intra-businesses communication n it's not going to go away!!!
I have a MVC pattern in place where I have been developing WinForms and WebForms against. Now, I would like to move onto Silverlight and thus need to 'web services'-enable my Model layer.
Where do I start? I can't seem to find any good resources. Many talk about EF or ADO.NET Data Services. What do I need to do to my Model layer to enable it for WCF REST?
There are many approaches you can take to build your server-side
ADO.NET Data Services - here is some documentation
ASP.NET MVC - if you do decide to use ASP.NET MVC, then this tutorial shows you how to access the service from Silverlight. Essentially Tim is showing you how to access the particular REST service exposed by ASP.NET MVC, but the same techniques (WebClient, etc) can be used to talk to any REST service
Build your own WCF SOAP-based service which implements the MVC pattern. This link shows you how to build and access WCF SOAP-based services in Silverlight.
Build your own REST service which implements a MVC pattern. There is a universal way to comsume any REST service from Silverlight, which is described here. To build the rest service you can use whatever platform you choose. You may consider the WCF REST support that comes out-of-the-box in .Net 3.5, or the WCF REST Starter Kit, which builds on the out-of-the-box REST support in WCF to give you some extra features. Or you can consider any other REST service framework of your choosing.
If you are going to proceed with the technologies you are talking about then forget completely about the term REST. What these technologies allow is you to do is object remoting over HTTP with the HTTP verbs. There is nothing wrong with that, just be aware of what you are trying to achieve.
The more you read and understand about REST the more confused you will get while trying to use Silverlight 3, ADO.Net Data Services, WCF REST Starter kit. These are all fine technologies to achieve what they were designed to do. Unfortunately, you will not learn how to do REST properly from these tools.
If you really want to do REST in .Net then start looking at OpenRasta.