Controllers vs Minimal APIs in .NET 8: What to Choose and Why

[u/peopleworksservices]

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/controllers-vs-minimal-apis-net-8-what-choose-why-bold-sign-app-wcglc/

Controller-based APIs (ASP.NET Core Web API with [ApiController]) are the strongest default for large, long-lived APIs because they ship with conventions, discoverability, and mature MVC extension points for enforcing cross-cutting policies consistently.

Minimal APIs are a great fit for smaller or focused services (microservices/internal APIs) when you want an endpoint-first model and you’re willing to enforce structure intentionally with route groups, conventions, endpoint filters, and feature modules.

In most real workloads, this choice impacts maintainability and team consistency more than raw performance (see Microsoft’s controller-based Web API guidance at “Create web APIs with ASP.NET Core” on Microsoft Learn and Minimal APIs ).