Controllers vs Minimal APIs in .NET 10: Why Structure Matters More Than Your Choice

In .NET 10, both Controllers (MVC) and Minimal APIs share the same underlying infrastructure, including routing, dependency injection, and model binding, making neither option objectively superior. The real deciding factor is the shape and scale of the API being built, with Controllers suiting large, convention-heavy projects and Minimal APIs fitting smaller, high-throughput or AOT-focused services. Both approaches share a common failure mode: logic and endpoints accumulate in one place over time when no architectural discipline is enforced early. For Minimal APIs, the recommended fix is to extract endpoints into typed modules using MapGroup, keeping Program.cs to a single line per feature rather than a sprawling wall of Map calls. On the controller side, the same discipline applies — controllers should stay thin, delegating business logic to services, always using the ApiController attribute, and never returning raw database entities directly to clients.