WCF stands for Windows Communication Foundation. It is a framework developed by Microsoft as part of the .NET Framework to build and support service-oriented applications. WCF enables developers to create distributed applications by providing a unified programming model for building service-oriented, secure, and reliable services that can communicate across various platforms and protocols. WCF supports multiple communication patterns, including one-way messaging, request-reply, and duplex communication, as well as multiple transport protocols such as HTTP, HTTPS, TCP, and Named Pipes. This makes WCF a versatile and powerful tool for creating services that can be consumed by clients built on various technologies. WCF services can expose different types of endpoints, including SOAP-based endpoints and RESTful endpoints. While REST is an architectural style used for designing networked applications, WCF is a framework that can be used to implement RESTful services along with other communication patterns and protocols.