Microsoft WPF - Silverlight Comparision

	Microsoft WPF - Silverlight Comparision
Features/ Support	WPF	Silverlight
Platform Support	WPF is a Windows desktop technology for developing Windows application in the .NET framework	Silverlight is a web technology, that is fully supported by a browser plugin on both Windows and MAC (in a similar fashion to Flash). There is also a plugin for running Silverlight on Linux (Moonlight).
Architecture	Presentation Core --> .NET Framework --> CLR	Presentation Core -->.NET for Silverlight --> CLR for Silverlight --> Browser Host
Deployment	WPF applications can be deployed as a standalone application, ClickOnce application, or a XAML Browser application. BAML is a binary form of the XAML in a WPF application	Silverlight applications are hosted within a web server and a web page. To minimize client download size, Silverlight uses an XAP archive. A XAP archive is a zip-compressed archive of the Silverlight application, plus a manifest file describing the content.
XAML processing	WPF has its own XAML parser	XAML parser that is part of the Silverlight core install
Xml/Object Data Provider	Supports the `XmlDataProvider` and `ObjectDataProvider`	Supports the `XmlDataProvider` but not the `ObjectDataProvider`
Access to .NET Network Stack	WPF has access to the full .NET networking stack and can make any type of call	Silverlight is a browser-based technology that has access to a subset of the .NET Framework (called the CoreCLR). Can only make asynchronous network calls
Cryptography Namespaces	WPF has access to 107 cryptography classes and supports the full range of algorithms in the .NET Framework.	Cryptography (Silverlight has 20 classes in the namespace. Silverlight supports only 4 hashing algorithms and the AES encryption protocol
Deep Zoom	No	Yes
Data Binding	Supports MultiBinding	Doesn't support MultiBinding
Triggers	Yes	Limited support
Commanding	Yes	No
Freezable objects	Yes	No (Flow Document are designed to optimize viewing and readability)
3D Drawing	Yes	3D Support is limited
Flow Document support	Yes	No
Dynamic resources	Yes	No
Multitouch API	WPF has element-level support for multitouch events on its `UIElement` class.	Silverlight 4 client as a whole is registered for touch messages, and the multitouch events are handled through a client-level Touch service class.
Out-of-Browser Support	WPF has an XBAP deployment model that runs in a browser	Silverlight uses a different deployment technique where an application can be configured to run outside the browser after being installed from a host Web page
Screen Coordinate System	WPF has a theoretically unbounded coordinate system	Silverlight has a bounded coordinate system
Measurements	WPF supports a measurement system that by default is based on Device Independent Pixel (DIP) units	Silverlight supports a measurement system that is always based on pixel units.
URL based navigation	No	Yes
Clipboard	Anything serializable	Text only
Controls/Elements	All visually rendering elements derive from the Visual base class	Elements derive from Control
External Device access	Anything with drivers, COM, Win32 or Communication Protocol	Webcam, Camera, Microphone and device with COM API or compatible communication protocol
File Access	Unlimited	Limited
WPF Specific Functionality	Desktop Functionality (Printing, XPS Documents, Speech, InterOp) XAML (Styles ) User Interface (3D Graphics, Themes, Skins, Image Manipulation, Page-Based Navigation, Input Gestures) General Functionality (Freezable Objects, Data Providers, Validation, Dynamic Resources, Code Access Security )
Silverlight Specific Functionality		Web Functionality (Browser InterOp) Media (Traditional Streaming, Progressive Download, Smooth Streaming, Timeline Markers ) Deep Zoom