What exactly is the difference between Web API and REST API in MVC

Question

I have a little understanding on REST API  As per my knowledge it is used to work with HTTP services GET POST PUT DELETE    When i add a webapi controller it provides me some basic methods like     public class Default1Controller   ApiController                  GET api default1         public IEnumerable lt string gt  Get                         return new string      value1    value2                           GET api default1 5         public string Get int id                        return  value                         POST api default1         public void Post  FromBody string value                                  PUT api default1 5         public void Put int id   FromBody string value                                  DELETE api default1 5         public void Delete int id                              So my question is what s the difference between Web API and REST API   As from rest definition the above code is REST based so what s a normal Web API in MVC  I m a bit confused as some people says do you use web api with REST   Kindly provide a better understanding of the both

User · Answer

ASP NET Web API is a framework that makes it easy to build HTTP services that reach a broad range of clients  including browsers and mobile devices  ASP NET Web API is an ideal platform for building RESTful applications on the  NET Framework    REST  RESTs sweet spot is when you are exposing a public API over the internet to handle CRUD operations on data  REST is focused on accessing named resources through a single consistent interface   SOAP  SOAP brings it   s own protocol and focuses on exposing pieces of application logic  not data  as services  SOAP exposes operations  SOAP is focused on accessing named operations  each implement some business logic through different interfaces   Though SOAP is commonly referred to as    web services    this is a misnomer  SOAP has very little if anything to do with the Web  REST provides true    Web services    based on URIs and HTTP   Reference  http   spf13 com post soap-vs-rest   And finally  What they could be referring to is REST vs  RPC See this  http   encosia com rest-vs-rpc-in-asp-net-web-api-who-cares-it-does-both

User · Answer

I have been there  like so many of us  There are so many confusing words like Web API  REST  RESTful  HTTP  SOAP  WCF  Web Services    and many more around this topic  But I am going to give brief explanation of only those which you have asked   REST  It is neither an API nor a framework  It is just an architectural concept  You can find more details here   RESTful  I have not come across any formal definition of RESTful anywhere  I believe it is just another buzzword for APIs to say if they comply with REST specifications   EDIT  There is another trending open source initiative OpenAPI Specification  OAS   formerly known as Swagger  to standardise REST APIs   Web API  It in an open source framework for writing HTTP APIs  These APIs can be RESTful or not  Most HTTP APIs we write are not RESTful  This framework implements HTTP protocol specification and hence you hear terms like URIs  request response headers  caching  versioning  various content types formats     Note  I have not used the term Web Services deliberately because it is a confusing term to use  Some people use this as a generic concept  I preferred to call them HTTP APIs  There is an actual framework named  Web Services  by Microsoft like Web API  However it implements another protocol called SOAP

[c#] What exactly is the difference between Web API and REST API in MVC?

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