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[* edited - thought the asker meant .aspx, but he really did mean .ashx]<br />
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aspx is the older, legacy .NET web services.<br />
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svc is WCF services. You need .NET 3.0 + for that.<br />
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They both are used for web services.<br />
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The differences are a mile long, but primarily WCF is a large toolkit, a framework, for supporting a myriad of transport protocols, authentication mechanisms, serialization formats, etc. WCF can be better for tailoring the service to interact with other heterogenous systems. It has better security, better integrity, reliable messaging.<br />
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I'd suggest just researching WCF on Google / MSDN.<br />
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Most new projects are probably going to want to use WCF.<br />

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[* edited - thought the asker meant .aspx, but he really did mean .ashx]

aspx is the older, legacy .NET web services.

svc is WCF services. You need .NET 3.0 + for that.

They both are used for web services.

The differences are a mile long, but primarily WCF is a large toolkit, a framework, for supporting a myriad of transport protocols, authentication mechanisms, serialization formats, etc. WCF can be better for tailoring the service to interact with other heterogenous systems. It has better security, better integrity, reliable messaging.

I'd suggest just researching WCF on Google / MSDN.

Most new projects are probably going to want to use WCF.


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Oh, I apologize. You did mean ashx! I admit I never heard of it until just now!
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Oh, I apologize. You did mean ashx! I admit I never heard of it until just now!

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What is the difference between ashx and svc and why would I chose one over the other? &nbsp;They appear to do the same thing.
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What is the difference between ashx and svc and why would I chose one over the other?  They appear to do the same thing.

ashx vs svc

C# is an object-oriented programming language created in conjunction with Microsoft’s .NET framework. Compilation is usually done into the Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL), which is then JIT-compiled to native code (and cached) during execution in the Common Language Runtime (CLR).

The successor to Active Server Pages, ASP.NET websites utilize the .NET framework to produce dynamic, data and content-driven web applications and services. ASP.NET code can be written using any .NET supported language. As of 2009, ASP.NET can also apply the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern to web applications

ASP.NET

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is a tool used to implement and deploy a service-oriented architecture (SOA) to support distributed computing where services have remote consumers. It features a runtime and a set of APIs in the .NET Framework for building connected, service-oriented applications. Services typically have a WSDL interface (Web Services Description Language) that any WCF client can use to consume the service, regardless of which platform the service is hosted on. WCF implements many advanced Web services (WS) standards such as WS-Addressing, WS-ReliableMessaging, WS-Security, RSS Syndication Services, WS-Discovery, routing and better support for REST services.

Mono is an open source platform based on the .NET framework to enable the development of Linux and other cross-platform applications. Based on C# and the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) standards, applications can also be developed in VB.NET, Java, Python, F#, Ruby, Eiffel and others, and includes a Microsoft compatible API.