Visual web parts VS Standard web parts 1. A standard web part is an item-level template in Visual Studio. That means that you can only add it as an item to your project (an empty SharePoint project for example). A visual web part can be created as both item-level and project-level. 2. In the case of the visual web part, you can use a designer experience to drag and drop items on your canvas. In the case of the standard web part, you will have to manually type everything (using IntelliSense). 3. A standard web part can be deployed as a Farm or Sandboxed solution. A visual web part will have to be deployed as a Farm solution. Web Parts vs. User Controls One of the limitations of user control is that they cannot be shared across web applications but they can be created using a designer tool. On the other hand if you take custom controls, they can be shared across web applications, but there is no visual designer for creating custom controls through which we cannot drag and drop