Difference Between WCF Service Application and WCF Service Library

WCF - Basic Difference Between Service Application and Service Library

1. In the WCF Service Application we have a service contract i.e. IService1 for the service implementation and Service1 as a Web.config file.
   
   In the Service Library we also have a service contract i.e. IService1 for the service implementation and Service1 as an App.config file for the configuration (instead of web.config as in the Service Application).
   
   
2. The major difference is that the WCF Service Application has a .svc file, whereas the WCF Service Library does not have a .svc file. Suppose we want to host this service application in IIS, then you need to specify for IIS the execution runtime environment requirements.
   
   In a web application we set an .aspx, similarly for a Service Application we need to set a .svc.
   
   
3. In WCF Service Application the Service1.svc is hosted by default by the ASP.NET Development server where as:
   
   A WCF Service Library is not hosted by the ASP.Net development server. It is hosted by the Test Client, since a Service Library does not have .svc file.
   
   
4. If you want to host your service in IIS then you should select the WCF Service Application template and if you want to host it as a Windows Service or set a reference of your library then you should select the WCF Service Library template.