Who still runs Web Forms and control suites
ASP.NET Web Forms was Microsoft’s main web framework from 2002 and well into the 2010s. Its page model, with server controls and ViewState, made it quick to build data-heavy business screens, and third-party control suites from Telerik and DevExpress supplied grids, schedulers, charts and editors. BuiltWith trends for the top 1M sites (October 2026) show ASP.NET on about 101,900 sites, ASP.NET Ajax on about 18,100, Telerik controls on about 3,300 and DevExpress ASP.NET on about 1,100.
Inside companies, the same pattern runs portals, dashboards, reporting tools and admin screens.
What goes wrong when nobody is looking after it
- No upgrade path. Web Forms was not carried over to modern .NET, so moving off .NET Framework means re-implementing pages.
- Control suite versions are old. The site uses a Telerik or DevExpress version bought years ago, with a lapsed subscription, an unknown license key and an installer that is missing.
- ViewState and postbacks bloat pages. Slow screens, large page sizes and odd behavior when users open two tabs.
- UpdatePanel quirks. Partial updates that fail silently, or scripts that stop after a browser update.
- Grids hold the logic. Business rules are wired into grid events and templates, making them hard to extract.
- Older browsers assumed. Scripts and controls that depended on behavior that browsers have dropped.
Support and takeover options
ASP.NET Web Forms with control suites is Tier B, taken on by arrangement. The Takeover Assessment is read-only: obtain source and the deployed site, identify the framework and control-suite versions, find license evidence, list pages by size and complexity and check that the project builds.
Options next:
- Keep it healthy. Reproducible build, license records, tested backups, patching in a copy first and a person to call. Ongoing Support is arranged case by case.
- Update in place. Move to .NET Framework 4.8, renew or update controls, fix performance problems. Fixes and Upgrades.
- Migrate in stages. Move page groups to modern .NET, often starting with shared logic and data access, while the Web Forms site continues to serve users. Modernization and AI.
If the site is down, Emergency Recovery is the first call. It covers outages from errors, crashes and neglect.
What drives the choice
If the site is stable and the control vendor is still supporting your version, staying put is a rational decision that buys years. Moving becomes more attractive when the Windows Server is going out of support, when you need features Web Forms makes hard, such as responsive layouts or modern authentication, or when hiring is the main constraint. We lay out the options and what drives each one after the assessment, not before.
Counting the controls
The most useful number in a Web Forms migration is how many distinct control types and customizations the site uses. A site with a few grids and a scheduler is a different project from one with a hundred custom templates. We inventory every page, count controls and mark those on the heavily used screens, so the plan is based on facts.
How we work
Tier B and C stacks are by arrangement with a stack specialist. We scope each in writing and tell you plainly when we are not the right fit. Every engagement starts read-only. Write access is set out in a signed agreement first, and a person reviews every change before it reaches a live system. Work is AI-assisted and human-reviewed, and we explain how at the start.
Related stacks
See ASP.NET and .NET Framework, Classic ASP and Java EE and JSF.
Request a quote for your Web Forms site and tell us which control suite it uses and who last worked on it.