Difference between MVC4 and MVC4 Web API

Question

I got this question triggered in interview. Is there any difference between MVC4 and MVC4 Web API?

I just responded with API returns some JSON or XML result. Is there anything more than this?

Thanks.

Answer 1

In WebApi is likely to be a subset of full MVC.

• It does not contains views.
• The controller is different. In WebApi it is ApiController instead of Controller. Major difference is that actions on Web API controllers do not return views, they return data.

In my opinion you should do some tutorial and see difference by yourself