What is the difference between ViewResult() and ActionResult() in ASP.NET MVC?

Consider:

public ViewResult Index()
{
    return View();
}

public ActionResult Index()
{
    return View();
}

• ActionResult is an abstract class.
• ViewResult derives from ActionResult. Other derived classes include JsonResult and PartialViewResult.

The only difference is that with the ActionResult one, your controller isn’t promising to return a view – you could change the method body to conditionally return a RedirectResult or something else without changing the method definition.

And some ActionResult subtypes are:

• ViewResult – Renders a specifed view to the response stream
• PartialViewResult – Renders a specifed partial view to the response stream
• EmptyResult – An empty response is returned
• RedirectResult – Performs an HTTP redirection to a specifed URL
• RedirectToRouteResult – Performs an HTTP redirection to a URL that is determined by the routing engine, based on given route data
• JsonResult – Serializes a given ViewData object to JSON format
• JavaScriptResult – Returns a piece of JavaScript code that can be executed on the client
• ContentResult – Writes content to the response stream without requiring a view
• FileContentResult – Returns a file to the client
• FileStreamResult – Returns a file to the client, which is provided by a Stream
• FilePathResult – Returns a file to the client