What's the difference between HttpResponseMessage and HttpWebResponse?

Question

They both seem to be different ways of handling responses to the client.

More detail about my problem: I have a server in which when I receive a request from a clien

Answer 1

They both serve the same purpose.

• HttpWebRequest/HttpWebResponse are available since the first version of .NET, and are still a perfectly valid approach.
• HttpClient (which uses HttpRequestMessage and HttpResponseMessage to represent requests and responses) has been introduced in .NET 4.5, and offers a fully asynchronous API, along with a new model for request and response content; internally, it still relies on HttpWebRequest/HttpWebResponse.

An important difference is that HttpWebRequest/Response represent the request and response from a client point of view only, whereas HttpRequestMessage/HttpResponseMessage can be use by either a client or a server (ASP.NET Web API uses these types to communicate with the client).

You can use the one you're most comfortable with; just be aware that since HttpClient is asynchronous, the code that uses it must be asynchronous as well.