I wonder what is the different between Web Services and WCF? Aren´t they the same thing?
Thanks in advance!
I heared about two types of web services.
- XML Web Services
- WCF Web Services
What is the real difference?
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possible duplicate of [Web Service vs WCF Service](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/351334/web-service-vs-wcf-service) – John Saunders Aug 10 '12 at 17:33
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Web services can be built with any number of technologies, while Windows Communication Foundation is specific to .NET. WCF is not specific to communicating via HTTP. It can also work directly over HTTP.
Check out the linked Wikipedia page for more about it.
Carson63000
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Mark Stosberg
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What do you mean with WFC is not specific to communicating via HTTP what is it communicating with then? :) – Obsivus Aug 10 '12 at 17:17
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Rammtin, the details are on the Wikipedia page I linked to. For example, it work directly over TCP. – Mark Stosberg Aug 10 '12 at 17:49
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No, they are not the same thing. While you can certainly replicate the behavior of ASP.net web services in WCF, WCF is a far more fully featured (and complex) platform for developing SOA. It enables to you to take much more control of the messages exchanged between your client and servers, and offers you many more options in regards of protocols and bindings for your endpoints.
Take a look at this article for an overview on some of the differences.
mclark1129
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The corollary of that is that if all you need is a simple webservice, WCF will give you increased complexity without increased value. – Carson63000 Aug 13 '12 at 03:20