A common question by asp.net developers is what project model should I use for asp.net application? Web Site project (which introduced with VS 2005) or Web Application project (which delivered as add-in for VS 2005 and built-in within VS 2005 SP1)?
There is no thumb rule. Every project model has it's own advantages (and diss-advantages off course...). I hope this post will help you to understand better the differences between 2 of them.
Web Application project model
- Provides the same Web project semantics as Visual Studio .NET 2003 Web projects.
- Has a project file (structure based on project files).
- Build model - all code in the project is compiled into a single assembly.
- Supports both IIS and the built-in ASP.NET Development Server.
- Supports all the features of Visual Studio 2005 (refactoring, generics, etc.) and of ASP.NET 2.0 (master pages, membership and login, site navigation, themes, etc).
- Using FrontPage Server Extensions (FPSE) are no longer a requirement.
Web Site project model
- No project file (Based on file system).
- New compilation model. (Read here or here for more details) and ...
- Dynamic compilation and working on pages without building entire site on each page view.
- Supports both IIS and the built-in ASP.NET Development Server.
- Each page has it's own assembly.
- Defferent code model. (Read here for more details)
Ok, all is great, but you want to create your web site now. Which model should you use?
- You need to migrate large Visual Studio .NET 2003 applications to VS 2005? use the Web Application project.
- You want to open and edit any directory as a Web project without creating a project file? use Web Site project.
- You need to add pre-build and post-build steps during compilation? use Web Application project.
- You need to build a Web application using multiple Web projects? use Web Application project.
- You want to generate one assembly for each page? use Web Site project.
- You prefer dynamic compilation and working on pages without building entire site on each page view? use Web Site project.
- You prefer single-page code model to code-behind model? use Web Site project.
Additional Reference:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa730880(VS.80).aspx
Reference:
http://maordavid.blogspot.com/2007/06/aspnet-20-web-site-vs-web-application.html