Difference between WCF and Web API

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF): WCF is used to create a distributed and interoperable Applications. It provides a framework which is used for building service-oriented-connected applications for the transmission of the data as an asynchronous, from one service-point to other service-point. Previously known as Indigo and is a framework for building, configuring, and deploying network-distributed services. Web Application Programming Interface (Web API): To create web applications ASP.NET provide the 3 development styles which are ASP.NET Web Pages, ASP.NET MVC, Web Forms.It is like a webservice or WCF service but the exception is that it only supports HTTP protocol. Difference between WCF and Web API:

SR.NO.	WCF	WEB API
1	WCF ships with .NET framework to create secure, reliable, and high profile development solutions.	While, WEB API is a open source and also ships with .NET framework.
2	WCF offers supports for limited RESTFUL service.	WEB API is ideal for building RESTFUL services.
3	WCF used the web.config and attributes to configure a HttpConfiguration class	Web API can be configured using web.config service.
4	It depend on the attributes based programming model.	WEB API maps http verbs to methods
5	WCF does not provide any support for MVC features like controllers, routing, filter, auction results, etc.	ASP.NET Web API supports MVC features like routing, controllers, results, filter, action, etc.
6	It is not open source software.	It is shipped with.Net framework.It is also available as an independent download.
7	It rely on IIS hosting, Self-hosting & works activation services.	It rely on Self-hosting & IIS hosting.