What are differences in Partial and RenderPartial HTML Helper Method

In ASP.NET MVC, both @Html.Partial and @Html.RenderPartial are used to render partial views, but there are some differences between them:

Return type: @Html.Partial returns an MvcHtmlString, which can be assigned to a variable or used directly in Razor views. @Html.RenderPartial, on the other hand, writes the partial view's HTML directly to the output stream.

Method signature: @Html.Partial has two overloads: one that takes only the name of the partial view and one that takes a model object as well. @Html.RenderPartial has only one overload, which takes the name of the partial view.

Usage: @Html.Partial is used when you want to embed a partial view inside a view, and the result can be assigned to a variable for further processing. @Html.RenderPartial is used when you want to write the HTML of a partial view directly to the output stream, for example, in a loop.

Here's an example of how to use @Html.Partial and @Html.RenderPartial in a Razor view:

// Syntax example using @Html.Partial
@model List<string>

@foreach (string item in Model)
{
    <div>
        @Html.Partial("_PartialView", item)
    </div>
}

// Syntax example using @Html.RenderPartial
@model List<string>

@foreach (string item in Model)
{
    <div>
        @Html.RenderPartial("_PartialView", item)
    </div>
}


In the above example, @Html.Partial is used to render a partial view _PartialView with a string item as the model object. The result is then embedded inside a <div> tag.

In contrast, @Html.RenderPartial is used to write the HTML of the partial view _PartialView with a string item as the model object directly to the output stream, without any additional tags.