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What is WCF? How is it different from Web Services (ASMX)?

Anubhav Kumar 195 25-May-2025
c# c#  wcf 
Updated on 25-May-2025
Anubhav Kumar

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The Anubhav portal was launched in March 2015 at the behest of the Hon'ble Prime Minister for retiring government officials to leave a record of their experiences while in Govt service .

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Anubhav Kumar

Anubhav Kumar

25-May-2025

WCF (Windows Communication Foundation) is a framework developed by Microsoft for building service-oriented applications. It allows developers to build secure, reliable, and scalable distributed systems that can communicate over various protocols such as HTTP, TCP, Named Pipes, and more.

Key Features of WCF

  1. Supports multiple transport protocols (HTTP, TCP, MSMQ, Named Pipes).
  2. Supports multiple message encodings (Text, Binary, MTOM).
  3. Built-in security (authentication, encryption).
  4. Supports transactions and reliable messaging.
  5. Can host services in IIS, Windows Services, or self-hosting.

ASMX Web Services

ASMX Web Services are the older technology for building web services in .NET using the .asmx file extension.

  1. Uses only HTTP and SOAP protocols.
  2. Limited to XML text encoding.
  3. Limited extensibility and configuration options.
  4. Does not support modern features like WS-Security or transactions out of the box.

Differences Between WCF and ASMX Web Services

Feature WCF ASMX Web Services
Protocol Support HTTP, TCP, Named Pipes, MSMQ HTTP only
Message Encoding Text, Binary, MTOM Text/XML only
Security Advanced (WS-Security, certificates) Basic (SSL, custom authentication)
Hosting Options IIS, self-hosting, Windows Service IIS only
Interoperability Supports SOAP and REST Supports only SOAP
Extensibility Highly configurable and extensible Very limited
Transactions Supported Not supported
Configuration Through XML and code Mostly attribute-based

Summary

  1. Use ASMX for simple, legacy SOAP-based web services.
  2. Use WCF when you need flexibility, advanced features, or support for multiple communication patterns and protocols.
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