Apex is a strongly typed, object-oriented programming language that allows developers to execute flow and transaction control statements on the server. Apex enables developers to add business logic to most system events, including button clicks, related record updates, and Visualforce pages. Apex code can be initiated by Web service requests and from triggers on objects.

Visualforce is a framework that allows developers to build sophisticated, custom user interfaces that can be hosted natively on the Lightning Platform. The Visualforce framework includes a tag-based markup language, similar to HTML, and a set of server-side “standard controllers” that makes basic database operations, such as queries and saves, very simple to perform.