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We are trying to determine the best approach for adding a complex API layer to a modified version of nopCommerce. To back up a step, we're building out a custom site for a fashion/apparel manufacturer that has a lot of front-end application requirements and also needs to integrate with their cross platform apps (iOS, Android, Windows) which we're building with Xamarin. We've tentatively decided to start with nopCommerce as the base of our application to which we will add an API layer.

What we are unsure about is what is the best approach for implementing this in nopCommerce (or other similar .NET package)? The options we are considering are MVC vs WebAPI vs ServiceStack. We've been going thru many of the tutorials on PluralSight.com to get up to speed on app dev and API creation best practices, but there seem to be so many options, we're not sure where to start. We seem to be somewhat lost in a sea of implementation options for the API and how each is to be evaluated based on choice of the JS packages/frameworks used on the front-end for the web site and the tools chosen to create the apps.

If it matters, our basic requirements are:

  • Expand core of basic e-commerce package with some custom ERP style functionality

  • API layer that can work effectively with both a web front end (possibly as a SPA) and all cross platform apps built using Xamarin

  • Insure OAuth authentication across all interface types so we can just use social media logins consistently everywhere and can authenticate the user in any environment

Given this...

My question boils down to which of the three API methods (MVC vs WebAPI vs ServiceStack) is best for this?

user2662643
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  • If you are planning to use it on Mono, then dump this idea. – Bhushan Firake Oct 19 '13 at 11:18
  • Can you elaborate on that comment? – user2662643 Oct 23 '13 at 03:31
  • Servicestack and Mvc itself has too many issues with mono. Pure sample mvc app fails to run on some versions of mono. We have a project where we tried to set up same scenario, but it wouldn't work, we went up by using Servicestack.Razor and dumped mvc, used servicestack services and dumped webapi, still it has issues with `System.Net`. If you don't have any network operation from server, then it is a must have config with boost performance, else just a waste of time. – Bhushan Firake Oct 23 '13 at 05:45
  • I have a very similar project, and we've elected to go with Web API 2. I think it will be less of a learning curve than SS, because we're already familiar with MVC. It doesn't hurt that it's free and SS is not. I'm still trying to figure out the nuts and bolts of creating the plugin, though. – Homr Zodyssey Feb 21 '14 at 14:45
  • As the question originator, I wanted to give an update.... We settled on: nopCommerce (v3.2) -> BreezeAPI -> BreezeJS -> Angular -> PhoneGap This sln has been easy to use and very powerful. Breeze, if you haven't seen it, check it out. Highly recommend. And, when coupled with Angular, you get a very powerful yet easy to use environment where working with data to/from the server over the APIs is ultra easy. I'm not sure if it's as fast as SS, but from a dev perspective. Great. Lastly, we chose to go with PhoneGap over Xamarin as it's just plain easier and re-uses our front-end code. – user2662643 Mar 26 '14 at 14:51

2 Answers2

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In my humble opinion you should go with service stack, it´s easier to implement and a lot more flexible than web api, you can add/remove plugins for different functionalities you get a lot of infrastructure code OOB such as mechanisms to handle cache, loggers and other not just related to infrastructure such as validators and IOC container, etc.

you'll get a single mechanism for authentication including custom auth, oauth, oauth2, etc which works for linked in, facebook and google +, in that situation you´ll find yourself reusing a lot of code in across all your apps.

One other thing that I like about SS is that practically is just you and your IOC, nothig else, everything is quite simple to understand and to implement (there could be more than one hidden option or configuration you may miss in the documentation but you get a lot of support from the community in google groups or stackoverflow)

its easier to test (Unit testing) you already have abstractions for httprequest and httpresponse and a lot of more, you won´t find yourself doing wrappers for all the legacy web impl that are shipped with mvc.

SS is better than mvc web api in terms of performance, it got one of the fastest json serializers out there for .net

I´m working on a SPA app for the time beign and I have no regrets about my desition to get into the SS framework.

just my 2 cents.

pedrommuller
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  • Pedro, thank you for the detailed response. I also found this article (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9699083/servicestack-vs-asp-net-web-api?rq=1) for anyone that stumbles upon this question and is trying to sort it out like me. – user2662643 Oct 23 '13 at 03:17
  • Pedro, is there any reason, to your knowledge, not to use ServiceStack with nopCommerce (or in general)? We've been going thru the examples and documentation for the past day or two, and it's looking like SS is incredibly straight forward and easy to use. Because of our deadline, we'll make a decision and start coding this week. I'm leaning towards ServiceStack for all the reasons you mentioned, especially the authentication piece. I'm just trying to be thorough in terms of seeing if there's any real down side? – user2662643 Oct 23 '13 at 03:28
  • one of the things why you shouldn't start to use SS is because is not a Microsoft Project so you´re depending over small community instead a multinational company, SS could be a little bit more raw than any framework shipped by microsoft, I haven't integrated nopCommerce with web api or SS but I think that kind of integration is going to be as easy or difficult depending on the architecture structure you would like to implement – pedrommuller Oct 23 '13 at 13:33
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I would say Web API is best option for the Services Layer - http://www.asp.net/vnext/overview/aspnet-web-api There are many advantages - Web API has been in release cycle as separate component with latest features - Security - Versioning - Attribute based routing - OData integration

Jyo Reddy
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    [OData does not a make a good Services Framework](http://stackoverflow.com/a/9579090/85785). ServiceStack has been shipping [Attribute-based routing](https://github.com/ServiceStack/ServiceStack/wiki/Routing) for years. Versioning is much easier with a [message-based fx](http://stackoverflow.com/a/12413091/85785). The [Authentication](https://github.com/ServiceStack/ServiceStack/wiki/Authentication-and-authorization) is [easier to implement](http://christianspecht.de/2013/08/02/basic-authentication-in-asp-net-web-api/) and [Restrict](https://github.com/ServiceStack/ServiceStack/wiki/Security). – mythz Oct 19 '13 at 17:31