Razor vs ASPX View Engine

Difference Between Razor View Engine and ASPX View Engine

View Engine is responsible for rendering the view into html form to the browser. Now by default, Asp.net MVC support Web Form(ASPX) and Razor View Engine. There are many third party view engines (like Spark, Nhaml etc.) that are also available for Asp.net MVC. Now, Asp.net MVC is open source and can work with other third party view engines like Spark, Nhaml. In this article, I would like to expose the difference between Razor & Web Form View Engine.

Razor View Engine VS Web Form(ASPX) View Engine

Razor View Engine

Web Form View Engine

Razor Engine is an advanced view engine that was introduced with MVC3. This is not a new language but it is a new markup syntax.

Web Form Engine is the default view engine for the Asp.net MVC that is included with Asp.net MVC from the beginning.

The file extensions used with Razor Engine are different from Web Form Engine. It has .cshtml (Razor with C#) or .vbhtml (Razor with VB) extension for views, partial views, editor templates and for layout pages.

The file extensions used with Web Form Engine are also like Asp.net Web Forms. It has .aspx extension for views, .ascx extension for partial views & editor templates and .master extension for layout/master pages.

Razor has new and advance syntax that are compact, expressive and reduces typing.

Web Form Engine has the same syntax like Asp.net Web Forms uses for .aspx pages.

Razor syntax are easy to learn and much clean than Web Form syntax. Razor uses @ symbol to make the code like as:

 @Html.ActionLink("SignUp", "SignUp") 

Web Form syntax are borrowed from Asp.net Web Forms syntax that are mixed with html and sometimes make a view messy. Webform uses <% and %> delimiters to make the code like as:

 <%: Html.ActionLink("SignUp", "SignUp") %> 

Razor Engine support TDD (Test Driven Development) since it is not depend on System.Web.UI.Page class.

Web Form Engine doesn't support TDD (Test Driven Development) since it depend on System.Web.UI.Page class which makes the testing complex.