One of the most important uses of HVOF thermal sprayed coatings is for wear resistance. The present study describes and compare the mechanical and tribological properties of the thermal sprayed CrC75 (NiCr20) 25, CrC60 (NiCr20) 40, WC Co 88 12 and WC Co Cr 86 10 4 coatings, obtained by HVOF technology (High Velocity Oxy-Fuel). These coatings are required to provide protection against sliding, abrasive, erosive and fretting wear and they are candidates for replacement of hazardous hard chromium plating coatings used today in the industry on several applications. The coating microstructures were characterised by SEM microscopy. Differences in roughness have been determined by profilometry. The ultra-microindentation technique was applied to measure the hardness and the elasto-plastic properties of the coating. Experiments using a tribometer (pin on disc configuration) under lubricated and dry conditions have been performed in order to evaluate the friction and wear properties of the different coatings. It was found that the coatings with a higher carbide particle percentage presented poorer abrasive wear resistance than coatings with higher metallic binder phase, under all the conditions examined. This fact could be explained in terms of differences of cohesion between the carbide particles and the binder phase.