Difference between Custom Controls,User controls and Components in C#.NET

Difference between Custom Controls, User controls and Components in C#: Both User control and custom control are direct or indirect derivations of Control class. Control, in turn, is derived from the component.See the derivation in below lines.

public class Component : MarshalByRefObject, IComponent, IDisposable

public class Control : Component, IDropTarget, ISynchronizeInvoke, IWin32Window,
IBindableComponent,IComponent, IDisposable

From this, it is easy to understand that the controls are much richer than components feature wise.

Components don’t have GUI like user controls or custom controls.Components are more of APIs.Examples of .NET components are Timer controls, File Browser, Data Source controls etc. A component can’t contain controls inside it.

In detail the derivation hierarchy of UserControl, Custom Control and Component is shown below

//UserControl

public partial class UserControl1 : UserControl //UserControl1 is your control which is derived from UserControl

public class UserControl : ContainerControl

public class ContainerControl : ScrollableControl, IContainerControl

public class ScrollableControl : Control, IComponent, IDisposable

public class Control : Component, IDropTarget, ISynchronizeInvoke, IWin32Window,

IBindableComponent, IComponent, IDisposable

//CustomControl

public partial class SpecialButton : Button //SpecialButton is your custom control which is derived from Button

public class Button : ButtonBase, IButtonControl

public abstract class ButtonBase : Control

public class Control : Component, IDropTarget, ISynchronizeInvoke, IWin32Window, IBindableComponent, IComponent, IDisposable

//Component

public partial class YourComponent : Component  //YourComponent  is your derived from Component

public class Component : MarshalByRefObject, IComponent, IDisposable