--- schema_version: "1" id: 57308e594a5f297db4e55a99362873c7fc279b0f791ebb6080fc78c11aeed33c title: How Do Visualforce Pages Compare to S-Controls? collection: admin version: current locale: en-us portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/admin/current/en-us/platform/264-0-0/pages_intro_vs_scontrols.md canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.pages_intro_vs_scontrols.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 source_site: help.salesforce.com content_type: documentation content_hash: 155feffc353d551936b077ae0a37c19a24593ffa4e3bbf8de86ceb93b636b709 description: Visualforce pages are considered the next-generation of s-controls and should be used instead of s-controls whenever possible, both for their increased performance and the ease with which they can be written. products: - Salesforce Platform release: "264" --- # How Do Visualforce Pages Compare to S-Controls? Visualforce pages are considered the next-generation of s-controls and should be used instead of s-controls whenever possible, both for their increased performance and the ease with which they can be written. Visualforce pages supersede s-controls. Organizations that haven't previously used s-controls can’t create them. Existing s-controls are unaffected, and can still be edited. The following table outlines the differences between Visualforce pages and s-controls.

	Visualforce Pages	S-Controls
Required technical skills	HTML, XML	HTML, JavaScript, Ajax Toolkit
Language style	Tag markup	Procedural code
Page override model	Assemble standard and custom components using tags	Write HTML and JavaScript for entire page
Standard Salesforce component library	Yes	No
Access to built-in platform behavior	Yes, through the standard controller	No
Data binding	Yes Developers can bind an input component (such as a text box) with a particular field (such as Account Name). If a user saves a value in that input component, it is also saved in the database.	No Developers can't bind an input component with a particular field. Instead, they must write JavaScript code that uses the API to update the database with user-specified field values.
Stylesheet inheritance	Yes	No, must bring in Salesforce stylesheets manually
Respect for field metadata, such as uniqueness	Yes, by default If a user attempts to save a record that violates uniqueness or requiredness field attributes, an error message is automatically displayed and the user can try again.	Yes, if coded in JavaScript using a `describe` API call If a user attempts to save a record that violates uniqueness or requiredness field attributes, an error message is only displayed if the s-control developer wrote code that checked those attributes.
Interaction with Apex	Direct, by binding to a custom controller	Indirect, by using Apex `webService` methods through the API
Performance	More responsive because markup is generated on the Lightning Platform	Less responsive because every call to the API requires a round trip to the server—the burden rests with the developer to tune performance
Page container	Native	In an iFrame