WPF or Silverlight which one has the upper hand?

Question

I am Really confused by reading some articles about Silverlight. Whether I should concentrate on WPF or Silverlight or Both?.

Answer 1

It's like asking Web or Desktop : Which one has upper hand?

Silverlight (Web) and WPF (Desktop) Both are similar. But both have their separate workplaces.

You cannot have a Windows Calculator , Task Manager or MS Word (please don't mention google docs) applications on web like they are on desktop. And same thing applies for web applications.

So, it depends on what platform you want to work on.

Answer 2

I dont think its difference between Web and Desktop. Silverlight is still pretty limited by platform it can run on and still requires some local runing process, even in the sandbox.

I think difference here is features vs availability. WPF can give you features of whole .NET framework, total acess to users's computer and some features that are not available in SL. SL on the other hand allows you to run your app on some different systems (Windows, Mac and there is limited support for Linux-based systems), distribution is much easier thanks to web deployment and whole application can be part of your web ecosystem.

Iam personaly for WPF, but thanks to this whole web and cloud-hype in the last years, SL is getting much more attention from side of MS and developers in general.

Answer 3

Reading these questions and their answers may give you some insight into this:

Definitive source(s) for the difference between Silverlight and WPF

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1254937/wpf-vs-silverlight

What is the difference between WPF and Silverlight?

Answer 4

I totally agree with decyclone, it depends on which platform you want to work. If you have prior experience Asp.net/We applications Silverlight is the way whereas if you have worked in WinForms/Windows applications then WPF is the way to go.

But yes most of the concepts in both SL and WPF are similar; so once you have good understanding of those concepts, you work in either without much problem.

If we ignore the platform then WPF is having the upper hand as WPF is kind of superset of SL.

Have a look at this SO question too -

Learn Silverlight or WPF first?