http://aspadvice.com/blogs/name/archive/2008/01/18/Try-Catch-Performance-in-CSharp_3A00_-A-Simple-Test-Response.aspxI read an interesting little post about a Try Except Performance Test Using Python written by Patrick Altman . As he mentioned, I have also had discussions with people about this exact topic in the past plenty of times. He was testing the performanceenCommunityServer 2.1 (Build: 60809.935)