About Data List in ASP.net

Question

what is the difference between Data list and Grid view

Answer 1

GridView has much more bells and whistles than DataList. The very basic difference is that you should write your own templates to use a DataList. GridView automatically provides you with a tabular data template and much more functionality out of the box. The rule of thumb is, use GridView when it's what you need. Use DataList, Repeater and other more customizable controls when you're willing to customize them more radically.

Answer 2

A datalist is more for display data in different layouts like a corporate phonebook with images that you want to make the columns horizontal instead of vertical like a table format. The downside to a datalist is you can't edit the data easily meaning it can be done but you have to write your own procedures to do it. With a gridview it's all built in for editing.

Here's a good explanation of each of the data bound controls in .net
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms228214(vs.80).aspx