I feel it depends on how you code the activeX control/dll, and how much work you allow the microsoft compiler to do for you, I feel writing a control in VC++ is much tighter for me, but in VB is much easier, but seems more open, personally I havent had a big problem,if you are going to use ActiveX for a web application, they can be a better solution to use on the serverside as a more secure way than hardcoding the same material into the Active server page itself. but as for Client side, I wouldnt recomend it for web purposes.