The downside of my celebrity is that I cannot go anywhere in the world without being recognized. It is not enough for me to wear dark sunglasses and a wig. The wheelchair gives me away.
My good friend and colleage, Alex, recently asked me a question that got me thinking: how many people are still actively developing websites with Classic ASP? Yes, I mean good old-fashioned .asp pages. VBScript, ADO, server-side includes, and all that fun stuff.
Alex has been experimenting with some development tools for Classic ASP, including a VS Code extension that can help with things like previewing pages that contain a bunch of INCLUDE files. That led to a discussion about what people are actually using these days to work on Classic ASP sites, and whether there are enough of us dinosaurs left to make tools like that useful.
Personally, I still use Classic ASP every day. My entire website has been running on it for decades, with SQL Server on the back end. I use EditPlus, which is basically just a really good text editor with FTP built in, and I've developed my own little tricks and systems over the years to make working with a large site easier.
So now I'm curious about the rest of you. If you're still using Classic ASP:
- Are you maintaining an old site, or are you still actively adding new features? - What editor or IDE do you use? - What database do you use on the back end? - What little annoyances do you run into regularly? - Are there features you wish your editor or development tools handled better? - Have you thought about moving to something newer? If so, what's keeping you on Classic ASP? - Would you be interested in seeing new Classic ASP tutorials or TechHelp videos?
That last question is especially interesting to me. I made a full Classic ASP course 18 years ago, so it's ancient at this point*. I've also covered some basic ASP in my newer SQL Server Online course because it's a really easy way to show students how to build a simple dynamic web page that can read and write data on a SQL Server.
Obviously there are newer and much more powerful web development platforms available today. I'm not suggesting that Classic ASP is the latest and greatest technology. But I still think it has one major advantage: it's EASY.
If you already know Access VBA, Classic ASP with VBScript feels very familiar. You can learn enough to build a basic dynamic web page without having to learn a giant modern framework, a mountain of dependencies, and seventeen other technologies just to put some database records on a web page. To me, it's a little like BASIC versus C++. There are much more powerful tools available, but sometimes you just want something simple that lets you get the job done.
Once I finish getting a few levels of the SQL Server course I'm currently working on, I've actually been considering going back and revising my old ASP course. Before I put that on the project list, though, I'd really like to know whether there's still an audience for it.
So sound off below.
Are you still using Classic ASP in 2026? What are you using to develop it? What drives you crazy about it? And would you like to see me make some new Classic ASP lessons and TechHelp videos? I'm genuinely curious to see how many of us are still out there.
My personal priorities of things to figure out are:
1. Setting up a backup system for my SQLServer backend (without having to pull tables down to the front end)
2. Setting up a Log system for the SQLServer backend (My Data Macros didn't transfer.) I know, I know...but they worked well and were easy, once I automated their creation. Now, using VBA to create log records and then send them to the backend just seems problematic and silly, if I can do it in the backend directly.
3. Setting up a web frontend for the database. I have done a proof of concept to verify that it will work. I will be using whatever you have available. Unless you teach something better, that will be classic ASP with the existing lessons because it works.
This is in addition to my regular work, so it will be a bit before I get those done. The short answer is, I might be using ASP classic. What you have in the pipeline is well-timed for my needs.
Kevin Yip
@Reply 5 days ago
I have my movie collection on a Winhost website, with SQL Server back end and ASP classic front end (pictured below). It's done for leisure, so I don't mind the shortcomings of ASP Classic. But if I were still working and had to set up a web front end for something important business functions, I would likely use ASP.NET instead for better security and functionality. For my hobby, I'm currently developing ASP.NET versions (desktop and web) of my movie collection.
As to whether you should create a course on ASP Classic, you probably wouldn't find people clamoring for it, here or anywhere else. But it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, of course. You may create a few free videos and see how many views it gets. Even people who already know ASP Classic may be interested in watching just to see what type of applications you're making (I know I would be). But paid content on this? I'm not so sure.
Kevin what a fun project to work on, what IDE have you been using?
Kevin Yip
@Reply 4 days ago
Alex I use Visual Studio Code. Before VSC existed, I just used a plain text editor. In my old job in the late 90s to 2000s, I also used ASP Classic on an intranet web interface, only accessible within the company.
Ben Perry
@Reply 4 days ago
Richard, this is in my long term goals. As you know, and now everyone else, when I started watching your videos I didn't know what Access was or how to get it even started. I remember opening it to see that it wasn't something immediately ready for use like word or excel and thinking "nope, don't know what I am doing or what this does". Since, I have followed all your videos working well into my developer lessons and have built multiple databases utilizing more and more of the better techniques learned as I go. I have one that runs my wife's home business, I am building on for the medium sized company I work for and hope to build stuff for personal whenever I find the time. My longer term goal is to build a very robust easy to use system on multiple platforms. This means migrating to SQL Server and building a web app. I know nothing about anything outside of Access from your teaching SO my input is if you were to create additional courses new, I would teach whatever is most affordable and widely used. I will learn whatever you teach if it works but the one downside of Access to me is it isn't loved by all and makes cross platform use more difficult. It MIGHT have steered me in another direction had I known from the start.
Jim Thompson
@Reply 4 days ago
Its a 20 year old site, still adding features annually - www.philsearch.org a site designed to help scouts planning trips to Philmont Scout Ranch
I use VisualStudio Code and FileZilla, I use Jet as the database, No issues really, it does the job and its easy, Im happy with the dev tools I'm using. Converting 10s ot thousands of lines of hand coded ASP to something else is daunting, especially without a compelling reason to do so.
I would use any material you develop
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Mario R Mejia
@Reply 3 days ago
Hi Richard,
If I recall correctly, you asked this same question a few years ago. I still believe that if you were to put together a seminar on building a basic ASP website application—something modeled after yours—I’d be the first to sign up. It’s clear that creating such a site takes years of experience and dedication, but the result is outstanding. Your website is not only impressive, it also includes all the features most of us would ever need. Who says “old” is bad? On the contrary, it proves that tried-and-true work can be timeless.
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