Web API over WCF REST service in mobile development

Well, you have mentioned "Mobile Development" in your question title. Check these
ASP.Net Web API vs WCF[^]
REST/Web API and WCF[^]
ASP.NET Web API vs WCF – Where do we go from here?[^]
WebAPI or WCF?[^]

Hi,

I don't think you should get bogged down by which is faster. You should look at what is going to be quickest to develop that is manageable by you or your team.

WebAPI would be my choice for pure HTTP driven REST services. Why? Because although the webAPI was born out of WCF REST it is in fact a HTTP REST implementation that already has the bells and whistles for HTTP services. WCF REST is fairly convoluted to set up and there are more lines of code to it. If you are doing MVC sites, then working with the WebAPI should be second nature.

WCF however has many other benefits that developers can use such as throttling, scaling and concurrency as well as different end points (Message queue, TCP etc). However I feel this would be bloat for a basic HTTP service.

Hope that helps.