ASP.NET Web Forms is a part of the ASP.NET Web application framework. It is one of the two different programming models you can use to create ASP.NET Web applications, the other being ASP.NET MVC.
Web Forms are pages that your users "request" through their browser directly or indirectly and are User Interface (UI) elements that give your Web applications their look and feel. These pages are written as HTML and server controls along with server-side logic or code. The page is compiled and when requested by your user will execute on the server and generate the HTML that your user’s browser can render.
With ASP.NET Web Forms, you use HTML, "server controls" and code to create the page. This page is compiled and when requested by your user will execute on the server and generate the HTML that your user’s browser can render.
Within Visual Studio you can create ASP.NET Web Forms using a productive IDE. This allows you to drag-and-drop server controls, for example, when designing your Web Forms page. You can then easily set the properties, methods and events for that control or for the Web Form to define the behavior, the look-and-feel or other attributes. When you add server-side code to handle the logic for the page, you can program against a .NET language such as Visual Basic or C# using an associated page called a code behind.
ASP.NET Web Forms offer:
- Separation of HTML interface from application logic
- A large and rich suite of server side controls for various common or complex tasks
- Rich data binding, empowered by tools
- Support for enabling Ajax without knowledge of Javascript
