Chris Johnston

I once went for an interview where the job description was porting a series of websites created in ColdFusion over to ASP.NET. I asked my interviewer why they were making the switch and their answer showed a complete lack of understanding of what CFMX was and how it worked. They basically said that because ColdFusion added an extra layer of interpretation between the original code and what the use received, they wanted to go with .NET because it was faster. This, on the surface might sound fine based on an understanding of ColdFusion 4.5 or earlier. However, in ColdFusion MX, the original source code is compiled down into java byte code and served up through a J2EE application server. ASP.NET works in exactly the same way. The source code in compiled into byte code and served up through the .net framework and the asp.net server. So the difference would be…?

With all of that said, there are some real differences between ColdFusion MX and ASP.NET and Joe Rinehart has done an excellent job of detailing those differences. He has written an article, CF vs. .NET: Six month comparison, that is based on his experience of using CFMX and asp.net in parallel for the past 6 months.

I am not going to re-iterate the article for you here, so you will have to go and read it yourself, but I will say that I agree with his conclusion—ColdFusion MX wins in the end. I have used both CFMX and a little of ASP.NET and I have to say that CFMX is by far the easier of the two to work with and the faster of the two to develop with. In addition, I have never noticed a speed problem with either ColdFusion 6 or 6.1 (just to debunk the myth listed above).