Difference between WCF Web API and WCF Data Services

Question

What is the difference between WCF Data Services and WCF Web API?

Ariel

Answer 1

WCF Data Services is a framework on top of WCF that makes it easy to create RESTful services that "talk" Atom/OData based on specified LINQ context (object model, LINQ2SQL or Entity Framework).

The new WCF Web APIs are currently under development, and will enhance the existing WCF framework to build better HTTP/RESTful services in general.

--larsw

Freezing

so for http ajax requests one would choose the wcf web api? The demoes I saw with data services at mix11 just used an url so when to choose what? – Ariel

you can use ajax against both kinds of services - WCF DS can also return JSON. There's a specific library for working against OData services that can be found here: datajs.codeplex.com – Freezing

Maybe we can add this as well: "WCF Data Services runs on top of WCF as described but WCF Web API runs on top of ASP.NET but it can be also self-hosted if configured" – Nigh