WCF Data Services (OData) Vs ASP.NET Web API

Question

I am designing a distributed application that will consist of RESTful services and a variety of clients (Silverlight, iOS, Windows Phone 7, etc). Right now I\'m determining whi

Answer 1

This is a subjective question, so here's a subjective answer. IMO, WCF has way too much overhead for simple RESTful services. Web API, on the other hand, was designed specifically for RESTful services.

I'm in agreement with Dave Ward on this. Check out his blog for more information.

I’ve long held out against pressure to move from ASMX to WCF in WebForms projects, because accepting WCF’s complexity primarily only rewarded me with less flexible JSON serialization. By contrast, I’ve begun converting some of my projects from ASMX to Web API, and have been pleased with how easily Web API replaces ASMX.

I believe Microsoft has finally found a good balance between ASMX’s simplicity and WCF’s power with Web API.