Choosing between ASP.NET WebForms and ASP.NET MVC

I had the chance to speak at the first SANKO event on 8th of June at Microsoft Finland, and there my topic was to talk about when to choose ASP.NET WebForms and when to choose ASP.NET MVC. Shortly put, I don't feel developers should put these two technologies against each other; instead, these technologies complement themselves, and can be thought of as different tools for the job.

Also, the fact that it is possible to combine ASP.NET MVC and WebForms functionality in the same web application furthermore dispels the black and white contrast of these two. Furthermore, whether you should use WebForms or MVC depends on your (or your team's) experience, knowledge in web technologies, the need to have complex user interfaces, and what level of testability and maintainability you prefer.

In my opinion, WebForms is well suited if you don't have much experience in web application development; on the other hand, MVC is for you if you know the different HTTP protocol verbs and are familiar with HTML forms and JavaScript. WebForms continues to be used in many projects for a long time, and thus there is no rush in moving to it, even though everybody is talking about it.

But if you feel the pain in WebForms (for example, when it comes to application structure), then by all means try ASP.NET MVC.