difference between WCF Services and Web Services and REST Service

Question

What is the difference between WCF Services and Web Services in .net
When should I use WCF and when to use Web Services.Is REST and WCF service the same? Thanks

Answer 1

I see this is quite an old thread, but I have asked a similar question recently.

The answers given have all similar relevance, but in my opinion Ray was the closest to what was actually asked. When designing or refactoring a web based solution, you always get the question should we go with SOAP or REST. The answer lies in the complexity of the business logic required behind the service. REST is good for simplistic API calls that usually contains small sets of requested data or over night processing with large sets, but mainly for data requests. SOAP is more of an interactive day to day service with business logic as well. For example many methods with plenty of parameters.

What we do as part of our web based solution, is to try and make use of both. For internal methods and primary functionalities we use SOAP, but for exposed APIs we prefer REST. Framework related, definitely WCF as preferred choice, irrespective if SOAP or REST.