Windows Forms | ASP.NET Web Application | |
User Interfaces, data binding etc. | Easy to build | Difficult to build |
Deployment and Maintenance | Complex. New versions of assemblies, configuration files, and other required files must be deployed on all client machines. Usually user interaction required. | Easy. Need to deploy assemblies and configuration files on the server only. Transparent to the client. |
Performance | Faster | Slower |
Robustness and Reliability | One client machine goes down, other users are still live. | Usually web servers are never down. However if the server goes down, all users are affected. |
Network Congestion | Depending on the data transfer and connections made to the server from various clients. | Depends |
Resources | Runs on the client machine. | Runs on a Web server. |
Catastrophic failure | User interaction required. | Usually user interaction not required. |
Framework dependency | All client machines have to install required versions of .NET framework and other required libraries. | Only server needs to have .NET framework and other required libraries. |
Table 1. Comparison between Windows Forms and ASP.NET Web Applications.