I don't know a lot about differences, but, I have read that C# accrues more overhead on applications because it's not truly compiled into machine code language (Java acts the same way.) So I think it's more cross-platform friendly, but at the price of performance. That's all I really know about it though.

C++ has a more flexible template system that can do things (like take template classes as template parameters) that C#'s generics system just can't do.

Its use of RAII is nice, too.

It has a bunch of good libraries, like boost, and you can more easily write cross-platform applications with it.

Also, you can use multiple inheritance, which helps get around a few holes in the type system.

C++ meta programming That's just my opinion, by the way. I have no clue if C# has it, the extent to which it is supported, etc .