What is the difference between C# and ASP.NET?

C# and ASP.NET are two Microsoft technologies that are used in the development of web applications. Let’s discuss them in detail.

C# is the primary programming language of the .NET framework. It was designed at Microsoft by Anders Hejlsberg in 2000. C# is an advanced language based on C++, which is used for operating systems, gaming, web applications, utilities, desktop applications, and more. It is an object-oriented language being generic, functional, strict type, declarative, and imperative.

Coding Example

Let’s run a basic “Hello World” program in C# (version 10):

Console.WriteLine("Hello, World!");

ASP.NET is a website framework that was released two years after the release of C# in 2002. It was designed to generate dynamic web pages. We can also create web forms, web APIs, mobile apps and sites, single page applications, WebHooks, etc., with ASP.NET.

Coding Example

Let’s execute the following basic sample web application in ASP.NET:

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A sample web app in ASP.NET

Difference between C# and ASP.NET

It is hard to compare C# with ASP.NET because they are two different technologies used for different purposes. C# is a programming language and is comparable with other programming languages like Java, C++, etc. while ASP.NET is a web framework that it is comparable with PHP (server-end) or JavaScript (client-end). However, we can make the following distinctions:

C#

ASP.NET

It is a programming language like C++ or Java.

It is a web development framework like PHP or JSP.

It was created in 2000.

It was created in 2002.

It is a Common Language Specification (CLS) compliant language.

It is a code library that is used with C# to develop the web applications.

It has various features like multithreading, garbage collector, boolean conditions, delegates, indexers, etc.

It has multiple features, including session state, page state, HTML5 form types, asynchronous, MVC, etc.

It is used to code object-oriented programs, desktop applications, web applications, etc.

It is used as a server-side framework to generate dynamic web applications.

It is licensed under Generic Public License (GPL).

It is licenced under Apache 2.0.

It supports all major operating systems.

It supports Linux, Windows, and macOS.

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