Difference Between WCF and Web Service

When an Interviewer comes on Topic WCF with you, it is much obvious his First Question would be What is WCF? Why we use WCF over Web Service? What are the differences between two?

WCF (Windows Communication Foundation) is a programming platform for building, configuring and deploying network - distributed services. Interoperability is the Fundamental Characteristics of WCF. It is a combined feature of Web Services, .NET Remoting, MSMQ and COM+.

Difference Between WCF and Web Service

FEATURES	WEB SERVICE	WCF
Hosting	It can be hosted in IIS	It can be hosted in IIS, windows activation service, Self-hosting, Windows service
Programming	[WebService] attribute has to be added to the class	[ServiceContraact] attribute has to be added to the class
Model	[WebMethod] attribute represents the method exposed to the client	[OperationContract] attribute represents the method exposed to the client
Operation	One-way, Request-Response are the different operations supported in web service	One-Way, Request-Response, Duplex are a different type of operations supported in WCF
XML	System.Xml.serialization namespace is used for serialization	System.Runtime.Serialization namespace is used for serialization
Encoding	XML 1.0, MTOM(Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism), DIME, Custom	XML 1.0, MTOM, Binary, Custom
Transports	Can be accessed through HTTP, TCP, Custom	Can be accessed through HTTP, TCP, Named pipes, MSMQ, P2P, Custom
Protocols	Security	Security, Reliable messaging, Transactions

Happy Coding !!!