This table may help you decide what type of application you should build.
|
|
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.