Webforms or MVC - an insight by Aslam Siddiqui ● siddiquiaslam@gmail.com ● https://in.linkedin.com/in/aslamsiddiqui

1. An insight by Aslam Siddiqui ● siddiquiaslam@gmail.com ● https://in.linkedin.com/in/aslamsiddiqui ● 1
ASP.NET: WEBFORMS OR MVC
ASP.NET: Webforms or MVC
Hello Fraternity,
Many times, we sprung into technical associates who tend to rank the status quo of one of the model
amongst two models from Microsoft, yes we are talking about Webforms & MVC.
Webforms vs. MVC appears to be a hot topic with experts capitalizing on known limitation of webforms
and visualizing that MVC is the only way out, which can deferentially be agreed to disagree on.
Most of the time folks claim MVC to be the next great thing (yes it is great thing) and immediate
replacement of Webforms, but our experience with both the models points that they are two great
models which need to be better understood for their respective usage & implementations rather than
pitching all biases on one of them or against one of them.

2. An insight by Aslam Siddiqui ● siddiquiaslam@gmail.com ● https://in.linkedin.com/in/aslamsiddiqui ● 2
ASP.NET: WEBFORMS OR MVC
From our slight fiddling in it, it seems true that MVC definitely has an edge over webforms as it addresses
many of the points which webforms by design is limited to and that had happened because MVC is
introduced much after webforms; hence it is justified & mandated for MVC to have them since it had all
the learnings it need to had from webforms. At the same time I don't think it will be the end of webforms
or then career of webform developers.
Before we proceed, let’s see below is what some heavy weights in industry have to say on this topic:
cott Guthrie (Executive Vice President of the Cloud and Enterprise group in Microsoft)
“Web Forms and MVC are two approaches for building ASP.NET apps. They are both good
choices.”
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/01/24/about-technical-debates-both-in-general-
and-regarding-asp-net-web-forms-and-asp-net-mvc-in-particular.aspx
ino Esposito (consultant and the author of several .NET books published by Microsoft Press)
“ASP.NET MVC doesn't magically transform every developer into an expert architect and
doesn't prevent developers from writing bloated and poorly designed code. At the end of the
day, both Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC help to build applications that are designed and
implemented to deal effectively with the complexity of real-world solutions”
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd942833.aspx
effrey Palermo (Managing Partner & CEO of Clear Measure Inc.)
“It is rarely a good idea to trash your current application and start over”
http://clear-measure.com/i-have-a-web-forms-custom-application-should-i-upgrade-to-asp-net-
mvc-now-or-wait/
. Scott Allen (Write software & consult through OdeToCode LLC. 25+ years of commercial
software development experience across a wide range of technologies. A Pluralsight author.)
“…figure out for yourself what framework will be the best for you, your team, and your business.”
http://www.odetocode.com/blogs/scott/archive/2013/02/12/you-want-to-build-web-software-with-
c.aspx
icrosoft (doesn’t need introduction…)
A good overview of which to use when.
http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/older-versions/overview/asp-net-mvc-overview
S
D
J
K
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3. An insight by Aslam Siddiqui ● siddiquiaslam@gmail.com ● https://in.linkedin.com/in/aslamsiddiqui ● 3
ASP.NET: WEBFORMS OR MVC
Yes, webform developer need not be scared as webforms are currently serving enterprise applications in
continuous development environment and Microsoft themselves have endorsed that webforms will
continue to be supported but we think itis always good to learn new models / approaches especially when
it is part of our own .net framework and surely addresses few points quietly & to point.
We have been part of many recent discussion where superiority of one of the technology was attempted
to be proved but like mentioned above – both remain with their own pros & cons and very much remain
in market.
Our reasoning, and the reasoning as to why webforms would be chosen over MVC, has more to do with a
business value perspective rather than what one is better than the other. After all, the technology that
address business aspects “well”, has to be accepted as “definite superior” provided “well” is well defined.
Below we have tried to jot down small list of points which may help you to get better direction on selecting
right model for your next project:
 Time / money are the greatest reasons why webforms would be chosen over MVC. Webforms are
believed to be proven faster developmentmodel, especially when it havevery large resource pool
right away available to be used. Resource means expertise, manpower, internet help, ready to
use controls, etc.
 If most of your team knows webforms, and you don't have the time to get them up to speed on
MVC, the code that will be produced in MVC may not be of desired quality. Furthermore I would
like to emphasize that simple change in existing code will challenge your whole delivery schedule
as learning the basics of MVC then jumping in & doing that complex page that you need to do are
very different things and it is a definite risk to project and so to business lines. The learning curve
is high for MVC so you need to factor that into your budget too if MVC is called as selected model.
 If you have a large website written all in webforms, you might be more inclined to make any new
pages in webforms so that you don't have two very different types of models in your site which
will further increase complexity in managing source code. I'm not saying it's an all or nothing
approach here, but it does makeyour code difficult to maintain if there is a split of both, especially
if not everyone on the team is familiar with MVC.
 In our opinion, you would choose webforms over MVC if you don't have the time/money to invest
in updating your existing site to use MVC. If you do a half arced approach to this, it won't be any
better than the webforms you have now. Worse, you could even be setting this technology up for
failure in your company if it's messed up, as senior management might see itas something inferior
to what they know already.
 If your project does not define test driven development as goal to be achieved. If it does, better
go for MVC and yes don’t forget to factor the budget upsizing in case you don’t have MVC skilled
resources with you for project
mportantly end of the day, don’t give up to learn MVC. Trust, knowledge of webforms + MVC will
be bigger PLUS.
Happy Coding!!!
I