Railo Server compared with .NET - getrailo/railo GitHub Wiki

##Structure

ASP.NET aka Webforms

There is no direct equivalent between ASP.NET Webforms and Railo Server. ASP.NET Webforms offers the capability of managing state between forms, though this approach has fallen out of favour of late, with developers preferring .NET MVC instead.

.NET MVC

.NET MVC has some parallels with Railo Server & CFML.

Controllers and classes written in C# are comparable to CFCs.

Views, either in .ASPX or Razor, are comparable to CFMs.

##Server

Changes to Railo Server are made with the Railo Server administrator. Comparable changes would be made directly into web.config in .NET

##Pros & cons

Pros of Railo

CFML enables very fast prototyping.

CFML typically allows for faster development

CFML does not have strong typing, which some developers may prefer

CFML uses a fraction of the amount of code lines .NET does

CFML simplifies coding by abstracting away many details from developers

Railo Server can be extended with Java classes and libraries, whereas .NET can't

Training staff to use Railo Server will take a lot less time than .NET

IDEs and editors can be much simpler

No need to build as this is done when the code is run for the first time

Cons of Railo

CFML does not have strong typing, whereas developers may prefer .NET's strong typing

Clients may be resistant to change to Railo Server

Railo Server & CFML do not enforce practices whereas .NET does

CFML may not be as flexible as .NET because options are abstracted away

IDEs and editors are not as fully featured as .NET environments

Railo Server does not support .NET libraries (except via web service calls)