What is the Difference Between Webform and MVC

The main difference between Webform and MVC is that the Webform follows a traditional event-driven development model while the MVC follows a Model, View, and, Controller pattern based development model.

ASP.NET is a web framework developed by Microsoft. It provides the programming model, tools and various services to build up web applications. Also, it is a part of the .NET platform. Programmers can write these application using programming languages such as C#, Visual Basic, and, JavaScript. Furthermore, there are various development styles available in ASP.NET to create applications. Webform and MVC are two of them. Webform has built-in data controls with powerful data accessing. On the other hand, MVC is lightweight and supports many features that allow fast & agile development.

Key Areas Covered

1. What is Webform
    – Definition, Functionality
2. What is MVC
    – Definition, Functionality
3. What is the Difference Between Webform and MVC
     – Comparison of Key Differences

Key Terms

ASP.NET, MVC, Webform

What is Webform

Webform is built on the server and generates output to the browser. It is compatible with any browser and a programming language that is supported by .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR). The programmer can create ASP.NET web forms using Visual Studio. Also, he can easily drag and drop server controls to the webform to create the interface. Moreover, events and methods can be implemented for those controls. The business logic can be written using a programming language such as C# or Visual Basic.

Figure 1: ASP.NET Stack

Besides, aA web form consists of multiple server controls. There are textboxes, buttons, labels hyperlinks, radio buttons, checkboxes, etc. Also, there are controls to connect to data sources and display data such as DataGrids and DataLists. In addition, the master page can be applied to all pages. It helps to make all the web pages appear the same. Furthermore, it helps to maintain a consistent layout throughout the web application. It is also possible to use client scripts to build responsive user interfaces.

More to the above, the ASP.NET web forms provide state management. It includes options that help to preserve data on both per-page basis and application-wide basis. Also, security is a considerable factor when it comes to web applications. Therefore, web forms allow adding extensibility points and configuration options that enable customizing various security behaviours in the application. Furthermore, there is debugging and error handling that help to figure out the issues in the code.

What is MVC

ASP.NET MVC provides a pattern called Model View Controller to build the application by separating the web application to three main sections. They are the model, view, and controller. The model is used to implement the business logic of the application. Whereas, the view is the component that contains the user’s interfaces; in other words, it displays information. And, the controller is the component that handles the user interactions. It handles user input and requests.

In addition, the MVC helps to divide the application complexity. It divides the workload and improves the code maintainability. Also, MVC provides full control over the behaviour of an application. It also provides better support for test-driven development.Furthermore, it makes it easier to control the application behaviour while providing the environment to build large, complex and scalable web applications.

Difference Between Webform and MVC

Definition

MVC or ASP.NET MVC is a web application framework developed by Microsoft, which implements the model–view–controller (MVC) pattern.  ASP.NET Web Forms is a web application framework and one of several programming models supported by the Microsoft ASP.NET technology.

Model

The main difference between Webform and MVC is that the Webform follows a traditional event-driven development model. Whereas, the MVC follows a Model, View, Controller pattern based development model.

Controls

Also, Webform has server controls, but MVC has HTML helpers. This is another major difference between Webform and MVC. 

State Management

The state management contributes to another difference between Webform and MVC. Asp.Net Webform has state management techniques. But, MVC has no automatic state management techniques.

Syntax

Furthermore, while Webform follows Webforms Syntax, MVC follows customizable syntax (Razor as default).

Consistency

Moreover, Webform has Master Pages to make all the web pages consistent whereas MVC has Layouts to make the web pages more consistent.

Views

We can note a difference between Webform and MVC in their views as well. In Webform, views are tightly coupled to the code. In MVC, views and logic are separated.

Code Maintainability

Another difference between Webform and MVC is that MVC provides more code maintainability than Webforms.

Conclusion

ASP.NET is a framework which is a part of the .NET platform for building, deploying and running web applications. Webforms are MVC are two development styles available in ASP.NET. The difference between Webform and MVC is that the Webform follows a traditional event-driven development model while the MVC follows a Model, View, and Controller pattern based development model.

Reference:

1. “ASP.Net Web Form Features – Javatpoint.” Www.javatpoint.com, Available here.
2. “ASP.Net MVC Introduction – Javatpoint.” Www.javatpoint.com, Available here.

Image Courtesy:

1. “ASP.NET Stack” By MovGP0 – Own work (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Commons Wikimedia