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I have created a new ASP.NET (.net framework) website (not core) and when i run the project i get the following files created in the bin folder - website.dll, website.dll.config, website,pdb.
1) Are these always created for websites?
I would prefer not to have them because when i want to make a change to a .cs file the dll needs to update which will reset all sessions.
2) How can this be done?
I have previous asp.net websites and these files never got created so i am a little confused. old net versions don't do it?
FYI Project settings - .NET Framework 4.7.2 and the output type is class library (other options are console application and console application.
You have two types of asp.net webform projects.
A)
A asp.net web site.
These sites are thus not really a visual studio project. When you create a asp.net web site, then you don't use file->open->project, but use file->open web site.
With such above site, each asp.net page will have a corresponding cs, or vb.net page for the code behind. And you can modify ONE page (say the markup, or code), hit save, and you are done. Such pages (and the code) is compiled on the fly by IIS (the web server).
A lot of people do like the above setup, since in many cases, if the web server is on your same network, you can open the live site directly. Make some changes, hit ctrl-s, and you are done. Of course EVERY page used thus results in a .dll being created.
So, above is still a option you can use (and what you likey were using in the past)
However, there is a 2nd choice,
Asp.net web site application.
The key word/term here is "application".
In a asp.net web site application, then you have a standard sln (project file), and you have to re-build and re-compile the WHOLE site before a new update or deploy.
this means that even changing ONE line of code behind forces you to do a FULL re-deploy of the web site. However, while this is somewhat more "pain" for a new deploy, it is still a far more controlled environment. This choice also means that visual studio (vs) does the compiling BEFORE deploying.
There are significant advantages to this setup. You can include multiple projects and assemblies (and get FAR BETTER compile time resolution). So, the more advanced a developer, the more say using git, and adopting use of class library's and objects?
And the more compile time checking, and the more you adopt class objects and liraies for your devleopment cycle? The more you perfer the applcation approch to software development. As noted, there is that ONE BIG penalty for the enjoyment of far better managment of referances, compiling, and management of a larger project - you lose the "one quick and dirty" deployment option.
So, you have to pre-compile the site/code, and then run it. IIS does not do the compiling (and more important than the management of those other external code libraries). In most cases, with a web site, to add new assemblies to your project, the .dll's will be placed in the bin file. (and I don't like that at all).
I far perfer when I do a clean project, that the WHOLE bin folder and ANY dll's are 100% blowen out of the water, and don't exist anymore. If you use a web site, then you will and MUST have a hodge podge of .dll's strewn all over the place. And EVERY single page with code behind creates a .dll.
So, while your hands are somewhat "more tied" with a asp.net web site application, from a developer point of view, the advantages far outweigh the additional work/effort to deploy.
I have zero, but BEYOND zero idea why you feel or don't like the idea of all of your referenced assemblies at compile time being managed for you, and they all get compiled, and placed in the bin folder for you. Be it a desktop applcation, a console application, or whatever? The hallmark of the compile process was and is to gather up all of your referenced assemblies and .dll's and dump/place/compile/manage/put them into the bin folder for you.
Better yet? When you publish, you can choose options to "merge" all of the .dll's into one dll. This really is much like using a linker for software development.
The other big advantage, is you can say develop with new rosyln compile features. (free form text for sql is really nice). Since vs is doing the compile for you, then you do NOT have to ensure that the web site and IIS requires the advanced compiler options.
So, much of which one you perfer comes down to:
Do you value developer features, better compile time resolving of assemblies, having VS compile the code for you, or do you want to toss out the code to the web site, and have IIS do the compile?
The above also means that your web site will require the source code when using the web site option. This can be someone of a issue for some developers, or even security. Since any modifying of such web pages will automatic trigger IIS to re-compile that page + code for you.
With a asp.net web site application, then no server IIS compile of your code occurs, and better yet, at compile time the .cs (or vb) pages are stripped out, source code is stripped out, and the source code pages (code behind) NEVER is placed on the server. You thus ONLY get the .dll's and the source aspx pages, but NOT the source code pages published on the server.
As of vs version 2022, BOTH template options are supported. So, if you want to use or go back to use web site as opposed to application development? You can make that choice. Just use file->open webs site, and don't use the .sln (project file) anymore.
And you can when creating a new web site choose "asp.net web site", or choose the preferred (by many) the "asp.net web site application".
So, for a lot of sites - especially those a bit older, often developers choose the web site option - the deployment and update is really far less hassle and is done with far greater ease then a application choice. Despite this greater ease of making small updates to the web site, I still far prefer the application choice, since it has far better options in terms of referencing, compiling, and just overall general application management features. Might not matter for your case, and if the current site was a web site (not web site application), then I do suggest you continue and keep that code and site "as is", as opposed to converting to a application.
It seems strange that your panties are all twisted up over having some .dll's appear in the bin folder at compile time, as opposed to a HUGE MOUNTIN of .dll's created for EVERY web page + code behind as what occurs when using a web site.
This compile time and dumping of .dll's into the bin folder? It how all console, desktop, and more .net applications has worked for over 20 years of .net. Can't possibly be a surprise to any .net developer, and in fact most will be confused and miss this approach to software when using a web site - since now IIS is doing the code compile - and not you nor is visual studio.
So above should clear up the difference between the two choices, and why you are seeing a different behavior from past projects. Sounds like that past project was a web site, and not a web site application.
When I start a new ASP.NET project in Visual Studio, I can create an ASP.NET Web Application or I can create an ASP.NET Web Site.
What is the difference between ASP.NET Web Application and ASP.NET Web Site? Why would I choose one over other?
Is the answer different based on which version of Visual Studio I am using?
Website:
The Web Site project is compiled on the fly. You end up with a lot more DLL files, which can be a pain. It also gives problems when you have pages or controls in one directory that need to reference pages and controls in another directory since the other directory may not be compiled into the code yet. Another problem can be in publishing.
If Visual Studio isn't told to re-use the same names constantly, it will come up with new names for the DLL files generated by pages all the time. That can lead to having several close copies of DLL files containing the same class name,
which will generate plenty of errors. The Web Site project was introduced with Visual Studio 2005, but it has turned out not to be popular.
Web Application:
The Web Application Project was created as an add-in and now exists as part
of SP 1 for Visual Studio 2005. The main differences are the Web Application Project
was designed to work similarly to the Web projects that shipped with Visual Studio 2003. It will compile the application into a single DLL file at build
time. To update the project, it must be recompiled and the DLL file
published for changes to occur.
Another nice feature of the Web Application
project is it's much easier to exclude files from the project view. In the
Web Site project, each file that you exclude is renamed with an excluded
keyword in the filename. In the Web Application Project, the project just
keeps track of which files to include/exclude from the project view without
renaming them, making things much tidier.
Reference
The article ASP.NET 2.0 - Web Site vs Web Application project also gives reasons on why to use one and not the other. Here is an excerpt of it:
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 the Web Application project.
You want to generate one assembly for each page? use the 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.
Web Application Projects versus Web Site Projects (MSDN) explains the differences between the web site and web application projects. Also, it discusses the configuration to be made in Visual Studio.
Web Site is what you deploy to an ASP.NET web server such as IIS. Just a bunch of files and folders. There’s nothing in a Web Site that ties you to Visual Studio (there’s no project file). Code-generation and compilation of web pages (such as .aspx, .ascx, .master) is done dynamically at runtime, and changes to these files are detected by the framework and automatically re-compiled. You can put code that you want to share between pages in the special App_Code folder, or you can pre-compile it and put the assembly in the Bin folder.
Web Application is a special Visual Studio project. The main difference with Web Sites is that when you build the project all the code files are compiled into a single assembly, which is placed in the bin directory. You don’t deploy code files to the web server. Instead of having a special folder for shared code files you can put them anywhere, just like you would do in class library. Because Web Applications contains files that are not meant to be deployed, such as project and code files, there’s a Publish command in Visual Studio to output a Web Site to a specified location.
App_Code vs Bin
Deploying shared code files is generally a bad idea, but that doesn’t mean you have to choose Web Application. You can have a Web Site that references a class library project that holds all the code for the Web Site. Web Applications is just a convenient way to do it.
CodeBehind
This topic is specific to .aspx and .ascx files. This topic is decreasingly relevant in new application frameworks such as ASP.NET MVC and ASP.NET Web Pages which do not use codebehind files.
By having all code files compiled into a single assembly, including codebehind files of .aspx pages and .ascx controls, in Web Applications you have to re-build for every little change, and you cannot make live changes. This can be a real pain during development, since you have to keep re-building to see the changes, while with Web Sites changes are detected by the runtime and pages/controls are automatically recompiled.
Having the runtime manage the codebehind assemblies is less work for you, since you don't need to worry about giving pages/controls unique names, or organizing them into different namespaces.
I’m not saying deploying code files is always a good idea (specially not in the case of shared code files), but codebehind files should only contain code that perform UI specific tasks, wire-up events handlers, etc. Your application should be layered so that important code always end up in the Bin folder. If that is the case then deploying codebehind files shouldn't be considered harmful.
Another limitation of Web Applications is that you can only use the language of the project. In Web Sites you can have some pages in C#, some in VB, etc. No need for special Visual Studio support. That’s the beauty of the build provider extensibility.
Also, in Web Applications you don't get error detection in pages/controls as the compiler only compiles your codebehind classes and not the markup code (in MVC you can fix this using the MvcBuildViews option), which is compiled at runtime.
Visual Studio
Because Web Applications are Visual Studio projects you get some features not available in Web Sites. For instance, you can use build events to perform a variety of tasks, e.g. minify and/or combine Javascript files.
Another nice feature introduced in Visual Studio 2010 is Web.config transformation. This is also not available in Web Sites. Now works with Web Sites in VS 2013.
Building a Web Application is faster than building a Web Site, specially for large sites. This is mainly because Web Applications do not compile the markup code. In MVC if you set MvcBuildViews to true then it compiles the markup code and you get error detection, which is very useful. The down side is that every time you build the solution it builds the complete site, which can be slow and inefficient, specially if you are not editing the site. l find myself turning MvcBuildViews on and off (which requires a project unload). On the other hand, with Web Sites you can choose if you want to build the site as part of the solution or not. If you choose not to, then building the solution is very fast, and you can always click on the Web Site node and select Build, if you’ve made changes.
In an MVC Web Application project you have extra commands and dialogs for common tasks, like ‘Add View’, ‘Go To View’, ‘Add Controller’, etc. These are not available in an MVC Web Site.
If you use IIS Express as the development server, in Web Sites you can add virtual directories. This option is not available in Web Applications.
NuGet Package Restore does not work on Web Sites, you have to manually install packages listed on packages.config Package Restore now works with Web Sites starting NuGet 2.7
Web Site = use when the website is created by graphic designers and the programmers only edit one or two pages
Web Application = use when the application is created by programmers and the graphic designers only edit one or two paged/images.
Web Sites can be worked on using any HTML tools without having to have developer studio, as project files don’t need to be updated, etc. Web applications are best when the team is mostly using developer studio and there is a high code content.
(Some coding errors are found in Web Applications at compile time that are not found in Web Sites until run time.)
Warning: I wrote this answer many years ago and have not used Asp.net since. I expect things have now moved on.
Unless you have a specific need for a dynamically compiled project, don't use a web site project.
Why? Because web site project will drive you up the wall when trying to change or understand your project. The static typing find features (e.g. find usages, refactor) in Visual Studio will all take forever on any reasonably sized project. For further information, see the Stack Overflow question Slow “Find All References” in Visual Studio.
I really can't see why they dropped web applications in Visual Studio 2005 for the pain-inducing, sanity-draining, productivity carbuncle web site project type.
There is an article in MSDN which describes the differences:
Comparing Web Site Projects and Web Application Projects
BTW: there are some similar questions about that topic, e.g:
Web Site vs. ASP.Net Web Application in Visual Studio note: was removed, no longer on SO
website or webapplication in.ASP.NET
This may sound a bit obvious, but I think it's something that is misunderstood because Visual Studio 2005 only shipped with the web site originally. If your project deals with a website that is fairly limited and doesn't have a lot of logical or physical separation, the website is fine. However if it is truly a web application with different modules where many users add and update data, you are better off with the web application.
The biggest pro of the website model is that anything in the app_code section is dynamically compiled. You can make C# file updates without a full redeploy. However this comes at a great sacrifice. A lot of things happen under the covers that are difficult to control. Namespaces are difficult to control and specific DLL usage goes out the window by default for anything under app_code since everything is dynamically compiled.
The web application model does not have dynamic compilation, but you gain control over the things that I have mentioned.
If you are doing n-tier development, I highly recommend the web application model. If you are doing a limited web site or a quick and dirty implementation, the web site model may have advantages.
More detailed analysis can be found in:
Web Application Projects and Web Deployment Projects are here
Web Site or Web Application?
From the MCTS self paced training kit exam 70-515 book:
With web application (project),
You can create an MVC application.
Visual Studio stores the list of files in a project file (.csproj or .vbproj), rather than relying on the folder structure.
You cannot mix Visual Basic and C#.
You cannot edit code without stopping a debugging session.
You can establish dependencies between multiple web projects.
You must compile the application before deployment, which prevents you from testing a page if another page will not compile.
You do not have to store the source code on the server.
You can control the assembly name and version.
You cannot edit individual files after deployment without recompiling.
It depends on what you are developing.
A content-oriented website will have its content changing frequently and a Website is better for that.
An application tends to have its data stored in a database and its pages and code change rarely. In this case it's better to have a Web application where deployment of assemblies is much more controlled and has better support for unit testing.
Compilation Firstly there is a difference in compilation. Web Site is not pre-compiled on server, it is compiled on file. It may be
an advantage because when you want to change something in your Web
Site you can just download a specific file from server, change it and
upload this file back to server and everything would work fine. In Web
Application you can't do this because everthing is pre-compiled and
you end up with only one dll. When you change something in one file of
your project you have to re-compile everything again. So if you would
like to have a possibility to change some files on server Web Site is
better solution for you. It also allows many developers to work on one
Web Site. On the other side, if you don't want your code to be
available on server you should rather choose Web Application. This
option is also better for Unit Testing because of one DLL file being
created after publishing your website.
Project structure
There is also a difference in the structure of the project. In Web Application you have a project file just like you had it in normal application. In Web Site there is no traditional project file, all you have is solution file. All references and settings are stored in web.config file.
#Page directive
There is a different attribute in #Page directive for the file that contains class associated with this page. In Web Application it is standard "CodeBehind", in Web Site you use "CodeFile". You can see this in the examples below:
Web Application:
<%# Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="Default.aspx.cs"
Inherits="WebApplication._Default" %>
Web Site:
<%# Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="_Default" %>
Namespaces - In the example above you can see also another difference -
how namespaces are created. In Web Application namespace is simply a
name of the project. In Website there is default namespace ASP for
dynamically compiled pages.
Edit and Continue- In Web Application Edit and Continue option is
available (to turn it on you have to go to Tools Menu, click Options
then find Edit and Continue in Debugging). This feature is not working
in Web Site.ASP.NET MVCIf you want to develop web applications using
ASP.NET MVC (Model View Controller) the best and default option is
Web Application. Although it's possible to use MVC in Web Site it's
not recommended.
Summary - The most important difference between ASP.NET Web Application
and Web Site is compilation. So if you work on a bigger project where
a few people can modify it it's better to use Web Site. But if you're
doing a smaller project you can use Web Application as well.
Yes web application is much better than web sites, because Web applications give us freedom:
To have multiple projects under one umbrella and establish project
dependencies between. E.g. for PCS we can have following within web
application-
Web portals
Notification Controller (for sending Email)
Business layer
Data Access layer
Exception Manager
Server utility
WCF Services (Common for all platforms)
List item
To run unit tests on code that is in the class files that are
associated with ASP.NET pages
To refer to the classes those are
associated with pages and user controls from standalone classes
To create a single assembly for the entire site
Control over the assembly name and version number that is generated for the site
To avoid putting source code on a production server. (You can avoid
deploying source code to the IIS server. In some scenarios, such as
shared hosting environments, you might be concerned about
unauthorized access to source code on the IIS server. (For a web
site project, you can avoid this risk by pre-compiling on a
development computer and deploying the generated assemblies instead
of the source code. However, in that case you lose some of the
benefits of easy site updates.)
Performance Issue with Website(The
first request to the web site might require the site to be compiled,
which can result in a delay. And if the web site is running on an
IIS server that is short on memory, including the entire site in a
single assembly might use more memory than would be required for
multiple assemblies.)
One of the key differences is that Websites compile dynamically and create on-the-fly assemblies. Web applicaitons compile into one large assembly.
The distinction between the two has been done away with in Visual Studio 2008.
Applications are usually compiled before deployment where as the website makes use of the app_code directory. When anything changes in the app code folder the server will re-compile the code. This means that you can add/ change code with a website on the fly.
The advantage of an app is that there is no re-compiling and so initial start up times will be faster.
I recommend you watch the video Web Application Projects & Web Deployment Projects on the ASP.NET website which explains the difference in great detail, it was quite helpful to me.
By the way, don't get confused by the title, a great part of the video explains the difference between website projects and web application projects and why Microsoft re-introduced Web application projects in Visual studio 2005 (as you probably already know, it originally shipped with only website projects then web application projects were added in SP1). A great video I highly recommend for anyone who wants to know the difference.
A "web site" has its code in a special App_Code directory and it's compiled into several DLLs (assemblies) at runtime. A "web application" is precompiled into one single DLL.
Website and Project>>website are two different methods of creating ASP.NET application using visual studio.
One is projectless and another is project environment. Differences are as
Solution file is stored in same directory as root directory in project environment.
Need to remove solution and project files before deploying in project environment.
Complete root directory is deployed in projectless environment.
there no much basic difference in using either approach. But if you are creating website that will take longer time, opt for project environment.
Web Application project model
Provides the same Web project semantics as Visual Studio .NET 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 (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.
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.
It is always depends on the requirement of your client. ASP.NET just includes flexible features that the user needs for security and easy maintenance of your application.
You can think of a Web application as a binary file that runs inside the ASP.NET framework. And Web sites as a static webpage that you can review and easily deploy source code to.
But the advantage and disadvantages of these two ASP.NET technologies come what is good.
Websites - No solution file will be created. If we want to create websites no need for visual studio.
Web Application - A solution file will be created. If we want to create web application should need the visual studio. It will create a single .dll file in bin folder.
In a web application you can create the layers of your project's functionality and can create inter-dependencies between them by dividing it into many projects, but you can never do this on a website.
In Web Application Projects, Visual Studio needs additional .designer files for pages and user controls. Web Site Projects do not require this overhead. The markup itself is interpreted as the design.
WebSite : It generates app_code folder automatically and if you publish it on the server and after that if you do some changes in any particular file or page than you don't have to do compile all files.
Web Application It generates solutions file automatically which website doesn't generate and if you change in one file than you have to compile full project to reflects its changes.
Definitely web application, single DLL file and easy to maintain. But a website is more flexible; you can edit the aspx file on the go.
Web applications require more memory, presumably because you have no choice but to compile into a single assembly. I just converted a large legacy site to a web application and have issues with running out of memory, both at compile time with the error message as below :
Unexpected error writing metadata to file '' --
Not enough storage is available to complete this operation.
error, and at runtime with this error message as below :
Exception information:
Exception type: HttpException
Exception message: Exception of type 'System.OutOfMemoryException' was thrown.
at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.ReportTopLevelCompilationException()
My recommendation for converting larger sites on memory-constrained legacy hardware is, to choose the option to revert back to the web site model. Even after an initial success problem might creep up later.
Here Web Supportive Application is an example of website.
Website and Web Application both can be dynamic/static its depends upon requirements, here is an example to understand working of website's and web application.
To summarize some of the answers above:
Flexibility, can you can make live changes to a web page?
Web Site: Possible. Pro: short term benefits. Con: long term risk of project chaos.
Web App: Con: not possible. Edit a page, archive the changes to source control, then build and deploy the entire site. Pro: maintain a quality project.
Development issues
Web Site: Simple project structure without a .csproj file.Two .aspx pages may have the same class name without conflicts. Random project directory name leading to build errors like why .net framework conflicts with its own generated file and why .net framework conflicts with its own generated file. Pro: Simple (simplistic). Con: erratic.
Web App: Project structure similar to WebForms project, with a .csproj file. Class names of asp pages must be unique. Pro: Simple (smart). Con: none, because a web app is still simple.
When I start a new ASP.NET project in Visual Studio, I can create an ASP.NET Web Application or I can create an ASP.NET Web Site.
What is the difference between ASP.NET Web Application and ASP.NET Web Site? Why would I choose one over other?
Is the answer different based on which version of Visual Studio I am using?
Website:
The Web Site project is compiled on the fly. You end up with a lot more DLL files, which can be a pain. It also gives problems when you have pages or controls in one directory that need to reference pages and controls in another directory since the other directory may not be compiled into the code yet. Another problem can be in publishing.
If Visual Studio isn't told to re-use the same names constantly, it will come up with new names for the DLL files generated by pages all the time. That can lead to having several close copies of DLL files containing the same class name,
which will generate plenty of errors. The Web Site project was introduced with Visual Studio 2005, but it has turned out not to be popular.
Web Application:
The Web Application Project was created as an add-in and now exists as part
of SP 1 for Visual Studio 2005. The main differences are the Web Application Project
was designed to work similarly to the Web projects that shipped with Visual Studio 2003. It will compile the application into a single DLL file at build
time. To update the project, it must be recompiled and the DLL file
published for changes to occur.
Another nice feature of the Web Application
project is it's much easier to exclude files from the project view. In the
Web Site project, each file that you exclude is renamed with an excluded
keyword in the filename. In the Web Application Project, the project just
keeps track of which files to include/exclude from the project view without
renaming them, making things much tidier.
Reference
The article ASP.NET 2.0 - Web Site vs Web Application project also gives reasons on why to use one and not the other. Here is an excerpt of it:
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 the Web Application project.
You want to generate one assembly for each page? use the 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.
Web Application Projects versus Web Site Projects (MSDN) explains the differences between the web site and web application projects. Also, it discusses the configuration to be made in Visual Studio.
Web Site is what you deploy to an ASP.NET web server such as IIS. Just a bunch of files and folders. There’s nothing in a Web Site that ties you to Visual Studio (there’s no project file). Code-generation and compilation of web pages (such as .aspx, .ascx, .master) is done dynamically at runtime, and changes to these files are detected by the framework and automatically re-compiled. You can put code that you want to share between pages in the special App_Code folder, or you can pre-compile it and put the assembly in the Bin folder.
Web Application is a special Visual Studio project. The main difference with Web Sites is that when you build the project all the code files are compiled into a single assembly, which is placed in the bin directory. You don’t deploy code files to the web server. Instead of having a special folder for shared code files you can put them anywhere, just like you would do in class library. Because Web Applications contains files that are not meant to be deployed, such as project and code files, there’s a Publish command in Visual Studio to output a Web Site to a specified location.
App_Code vs Bin
Deploying shared code files is generally a bad idea, but that doesn’t mean you have to choose Web Application. You can have a Web Site that references a class library project that holds all the code for the Web Site. Web Applications is just a convenient way to do it.
CodeBehind
This topic is specific to .aspx and .ascx files. This topic is decreasingly relevant in new application frameworks such as ASP.NET MVC and ASP.NET Web Pages which do not use codebehind files.
By having all code files compiled into a single assembly, including codebehind files of .aspx pages and .ascx controls, in Web Applications you have to re-build for every little change, and you cannot make live changes. This can be a real pain during development, since you have to keep re-building to see the changes, while with Web Sites changes are detected by the runtime and pages/controls are automatically recompiled.
Having the runtime manage the codebehind assemblies is less work for you, since you don't need to worry about giving pages/controls unique names, or organizing them into different namespaces.
I’m not saying deploying code files is always a good idea (specially not in the case of shared code files), but codebehind files should only contain code that perform UI specific tasks, wire-up events handlers, etc. Your application should be layered so that important code always end up in the Bin folder. If that is the case then deploying codebehind files shouldn't be considered harmful.
Another limitation of Web Applications is that you can only use the language of the project. In Web Sites you can have some pages in C#, some in VB, etc. No need for special Visual Studio support. That’s the beauty of the build provider extensibility.
Also, in Web Applications you don't get error detection in pages/controls as the compiler only compiles your codebehind classes and not the markup code (in MVC you can fix this using the MvcBuildViews option), which is compiled at runtime.
Visual Studio
Because Web Applications are Visual Studio projects you get some features not available in Web Sites. For instance, you can use build events to perform a variety of tasks, e.g. minify and/or combine Javascript files.
Another nice feature introduced in Visual Studio 2010 is Web.config transformation. This is also not available in Web Sites. Now works with Web Sites in VS 2013.
Building a Web Application is faster than building a Web Site, specially for large sites. This is mainly because Web Applications do not compile the markup code. In MVC if you set MvcBuildViews to true then it compiles the markup code and you get error detection, which is very useful. The down side is that every time you build the solution it builds the complete site, which can be slow and inefficient, specially if you are not editing the site. l find myself turning MvcBuildViews on and off (which requires a project unload). On the other hand, with Web Sites you can choose if you want to build the site as part of the solution or not. If you choose not to, then building the solution is very fast, and you can always click on the Web Site node and select Build, if you’ve made changes.
In an MVC Web Application project you have extra commands and dialogs for common tasks, like ‘Add View’, ‘Go To View’, ‘Add Controller’, etc. These are not available in an MVC Web Site.
If you use IIS Express as the development server, in Web Sites you can add virtual directories. This option is not available in Web Applications.
NuGet Package Restore does not work on Web Sites, you have to manually install packages listed on packages.config Package Restore now works with Web Sites starting NuGet 2.7
Web Site = use when the website is created by graphic designers and the programmers only edit one or two pages
Web Application = use when the application is created by programmers and the graphic designers only edit one or two paged/images.
Web Sites can be worked on using any HTML tools without having to have developer studio, as project files don’t need to be updated, etc. Web applications are best when the team is mostly using developer studio and there is a high code content.
(Some coding errors are found in Web Applications at compile time that are not found in Web Sites until run time.)
Warning: I wrote this answer many years ago and have not used Asp.net since. I expect things have now moved on.
Unless you have a specific need for a dynamically compiled project, don't use a web site project.
Why? Because web site project will drive you up the wall when trying to change or understand your project. The static typing find features (e.g. find usages, refactor) in Visual Studio will all take forever on any reasonably sized project. For further information, see the Stack Overflow question Slow “Find All References” in Visual Studio.
I really can't see why they dropped web applications in Visual Studio 2005 for the pain-inducing, sanity-draining, productivity carbuncle web site project type.
There is an article in MSDN which describes the differences:
Comparing Web Site Projects and Web Application Projects
BTW: there are some similar questions about that topic, e.g:
Web Site vs. ASP.Net Web Application in Visual Studio note: was removed, no longer on SO
website or webapplication in.ASP.NET
This may sound a bit obvious, but I think it's something that is misunderstood because Visual Studio 2005 only shipped with the web site originally. If your project deals with a website that is fairly limited and doesn't have a lot of logical or physical separation, the website is fine. However if it is truly a web application with different modules where many users add and update data, you are better off with the web application.
The biggest pro of the website model is that anything in the app_code section is dynamically compiled. You can make C# file updates without a full redeploy. However this comes at a great sacrifice. A lot of things happen under the covers that are difficult to control. Namespaces are difficult to control and specific DLL usage goes out the window by default for anything under app_code since everything is dynamically compiled.
The web application model does not have dynamic compilation, but you gain control over the things that I have mentioned.
If you are doing n-tier development, I highly recommend the web application model. If you are doing a limited web site or a quick and dirty implementation, the web site model may have advantages.
More detailed analysis can be found in:
Web Application Projects and Web Deployment Projects are here
Web Site or Web Application?
From the MCTS self paced training kit exam 70-515 book:
With web application (project),
You can create an MVC application.
Visual Studio stores the list of files in a project file (.csproj or .vbproj), rather than relying on the folder structure.
You cannot mix Visual Basic and C#.
You cannot edit code without stopping a debugging session.
You can establish dependencies between multiple web projects.
You must compile the application before deployment, which prevents you from testing a page if another page will not compile.
You do not have to store the source code on the server.
You can control the assembly name and version.
You cannot edit individual files after deployment without recompiling.
It depends on what you are developing.
A content-oriented website will have its content changing frequently and a Website is better for that.
An application tends to have its data stored in a database and its pages and code change rarely. In this case it's better to have a Web application where deployment of assemblies is much more controlled and has better support for unit testing.
Compilation Firstly there is a difference in compilation. Web Site is not pre-compiled on server, it is compiled on file. It may be
an advantage because when you want to change something in your Web
Site you can just download a specific file from server, change it and
upload this file back to server and everything would work fine. In Web
Application you can't do this because everthing is pre-compiled and
you end up with only one dll. When you change something in one file of
your project you have to re-compile everything again. So if you would
like to have a possibility to change some files on server Web Site is
better solution for you. It also allows many developers to work on one
Web Site. On the other side, if you don't want your code to be
available on server you should rather choose Web Application. This
option is also better for Unit Testing because of one DLL file being
created after publishing your website.
Project structure
There is also a difference in the structure of the project. In Web Application you have a project file just like you had it in normal application. In Web Site there is no traditional project file, all you have is solution file. All references and settings are stored in web.config file.
#Page directive
There is a different attribute in #Page directive for the file that contains class associated with this page. In Web Application it is standard "CodeBehind", in Web Site you use "CodeFile". You can see this in the examples below:
Web Application:
<%# Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="Default.aspx.cs"
Inherits="WebApplication._Default" %>
Web Site:
<%# Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="_Default" %>
Namespaces - In the example above you can see also another difference -
how namespaces are created. In Web Application namespace is simply a
name of the project. In Website there is default namespace ASP for
dynamically compiled pages.
Edit and Continue- In Web Application Edit and Continue option is
available (to turn it on you have to go to Tools Menu, click Options
then find Edit and Continue in Debugging). This feature is not working
in Web Site.ASP.NET MVCIf you want to develop web applications using
ASP.NET MVC (Model View Controller) the best and default option is
Web Application. Although it's possible to use MVC in Web Site it's
not recommended.
Summary - The most important difference between ASP.NET Web Application
and Web Site is compilation. So if you work on a bigger project where
a few people can modify it it's better to use Web Site. But if you're
doing a smaller project you can use Web Application as well.
Yes web application is much better than web sites, because Web applications give us freedom:
To have multiple projects under one umbrella and establish project
dependencies between. E.g. for PCS we can have following within web
application-
Web portals
Notification Controller (for sending Email)
Business layer
Data Access layer
Exception Manager
Server utility
WCF Services (Common for all platforms)
List item
To run unit tests on code that is in the class files that are
associated with ASP.NET pages
To refer to the classes those are
associated with pages and user controls from standalone classes
To create a single assembly for the entire site
Control over the assembly name and version number that is generated for the site
To avoid putting source code on a production server. (You can avoid
deploying source code to the IIS server. In some scenarios, such as
shared hosting environments, you might be concerned about
unauthorized access to source code on the IIS server. (For a web
site project, you can avoid this risk by pre-compiling on a
development computer and deploying the generated assemblies instead
of the source code. However, in that case you lose some of the
benefits of easy site updates.)
Performance Issue with Website(The
first request to the web site might require the site to be compiled,
which can result in a delay. And if the web site is running on an
IIS server that is short on memory, including the entire site in a
single assembly might use more memory than would be required for
multiple assemblies.)
One of the key differences is that Websites compile dynamically and create on-the-fly assemblies. Web applicaitons compile into one large assembly.
The distinction between the two has been done away with in Visual Studio 2008.
Applications are usually compiled before deployment where as the website makes use of the app_code directory. When anything changes in the app code folder the server will re-compile the code. This means that you can add/ change code with a website on the fly.
The advantage of an app is that there is no re-compiling and so initial start up times will be faster.
I recommend you watch the video Web Application Projects & Web Deployment Projects on the ASP.NET website which explains the difference in great detail, it was quite helpful to me.
By the way, don't get confused by the title, a great part of the video explains the difference between website projects and web application projects and why Microsoft re-introduced Web application projects in Visual studio 2005 (as you probably already know, it originally shipped with only website projects then web application projects were added in SP1). A great video I highly recommend for anyone who wants to know the difference.
A "web site" has its code in a special App_Code directory and it's compiled into several DLLs (assemblies) at runtime. A "web application" is precompiled into one single DLL.
Website and Project>>website are two different methods of creating ASP.NET application using visual studio.
One is projectless and another is project environment. Differences are as
Solution file is stored in same directory as root directory in project environment.
Need to remove solution and project files before deploying in project environment.
Complete root directory is deployed in projectless environment.
there no much basic difference in using either approach. But if you are creating website that will take longer time, opt for project environment.
Web Application project model
Provides the same Web project semantics as Visual Studio .NET 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 (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.
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.
It is always depends on the requirement of your client. ASP.NET just includes flexible features that the user needs for security and easy maintenance of your application.
You can think of a Web application as a binary file that runs inside the ASP.NET framework. And Web sites as a static webpage that you can review and easily deploy source code to.
But the advantage and disadvantages of these two ASP.NET technologies come what is good.
Websites - No solution file will be created. If we want to create websites no need for visual studio.
Web Application - A solution file will be created. If we want to create web application should need the visual studio. It will create a single .dll file in bin folder.
In a web application you can create the layers of your project's functionality and can create inter-dependencies between them by dividing it into many projects, but you can never do this on a website.
In Web Application Projects, Visual Studio needs additional .designer files for pages and user controls. Web Site Projects do not require this overhead. The markup itself is interpreted as the design.
WebSite : It generates app_code folder automatically and if you publish it on the server and after that if you do some changes in any particular file or page than you don't have to do compile all files.
Web Application It generates solutions file automatically which website doesn't generate and if you change in one file than you have to compile full project to reflects its changes.
Definitely web application, single DLL file and easy to maintain. But a website is more flexible; you can edit the aspx file on the go.
Web applications require more memory, presumably because you have no choice but to compile into a single assembly. I just converted a large legacy site to a web application and have issues with running out of memory, both at compile time with the error message as below :
Unexpected error writing metadata to file '' --
Not enough storage is available to complete this operation.
error, and at runtime with this error message as below :
Exception information:
Exception type: HttpException
Exception message: Exception of type 'System.OutOfMemoryException' was thrown.
at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.ReportTopLevelCompilationException()
My recommendation for converting larger sites on memory-constrained legacy hardware is, to choose the option to revert back to the web site model. Even after an initial success problem might creep up later.
Here Web Supportive Application is an example of website.
Website and Web Application both can be dynamic/static its depends upon requirements, here is an example to understand working of website's and web application.
To summarize some of the answers above:
Flexibility, can you can make live changes to a web page?
Web Site: Possible. Pro: short term benefits. Con: long term risk of project chaos.
Web App: Con: not possible. Edit a page, archive the changes to source control, then build and deploy the entire site. Pro: maintain a quality project.
Development issues
Web Site: Simple project structure without a .csproj file.Two .aspx pages may have the same class name without conflicts. Random project directory name leading to build errors like why .net framework conflicts with its own generated file and why .net framework conflicts with its own generated file. Pro: Simple (simplistic). Con: erratic.
Web App: Project structure similar to WebForms project, with a .csproj file. Class names of asp pages must be unique. Pro: Simple (smart). Con: none, because a web app is still simple.
Is there any difference between website and web application project? What if you are working on a project that is sort of hybrid of site and application? which project should you chose?
I'ld go the newer Web Application project (always, regardless of the size of the project).
There is nothing to lose and everything to gain with using the Web Application Project (you cannot say this about using the "website" only).
The official list of differences are here:
Use Web Application Projects when you
Need to migrate large Visual Studio.NET 2003 applications
Need to
control names of output assemblies
Need stand-alone classes to
reference page and user control
classes
Need to build a Web
application using multiple Web
projects
Need to add pre-build and
post-build steps during compilation
Use Websites if you:
Need to generate one assembly for each page.
Prefer single-page code model to code-behind model.
Prefer dynamic compilation and working on pages without building entire site on each page view (that is, save file and then simply refresh the page in the browser).
Want to open and edit any directory as a Web project without creating a project file
#Mehrdad's link here is essential if you want to know more http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa730880(VS.80).aspx#wapp_topic5
As for which project to choose, I would go with the Web Application Project, regardless of size. Having all of your code behind compile down into a single DLL is a major benefit for maintenance and security on the hosting end. I know there are precompile options for web site projects, but they seemed like more trouble that it was worth for me.
I know that the IIS filters are in place to prevent users from accessing your .vb or .cs files, but it still makes me a little leery.
But more important to this is the nice fact that if you make a bunch of coding changes, or maybe add some classes and change the processing logic, the only thing you have to merge up is the compiled DLL and nothing else. Similarly, if you do a few UI changes (say change the stylesheet or position of a few controls), you don't have to worry about recompiling the application, you simply bring over the update .aspx page and you're done.
Take a look:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa730880(VS.80).aspx#wapp_topic5
http://forums.asp.net/p/1300026/2538628.aspx
I'm used to create websites when I want to create a new webapplication.
My current project had some problems on compiling, so I switched to a webapplication project. The step isn't very hard. Visual Studio helps you to change all necessary lines.
Refer to the links in the post:
http://www.codersbarn.com/post/2008/06/01/ASPNET-Web-Site-versus-Web-Application-Project.aspx
Anthony :-)
Which Visual Studio template should be used for a ASP.NET web site, the Web Site template or the Project | Web Application template?
you'd better read this:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa730880(VS.80).aspx
in my opinion it depends on what you are developing
Both function and perform similarly, but still differ in following ways:
Web application:
We can't include C# and VB pages in single web application.
We can set up dependencies between multiple projects.
Can not edit individual files after deployment without recompiling.
Right choice for enterprise environments where multiple developers work unitedly for creating, testing and deployment.
Web site:
Can mix VB and C# page in single website.
Can not establish dependencies.
Edit individual files after deployment.
Right choice when one developer will responsible for creating and managing entire website.
Web application projects works more like a traditional VS project, which has a project file, is compiled in one step and so on.
Web site projects works more like classic ASP or PHP-sites. There is no project file (references are stored in the solution file), and pages are recompiled dynamically on the server. The nice thing with web sites is that you can just ftp to the server and change a file in a text editor. You dont need VS. Some may hate that, though.
It probably depends on your background. If you are used to ASP or PHP style development, web site projects will seem more natural to you. If you have a traditional application developer background, web application projects will seem more natural.
If you're using Team Foundation Server for source control, you'll probably have to use a Web Application Project, as you need a .csproj file.
There are more details from Jeff Atwood himself: Web Site Projects vs. Web Application Projects
Web Site web projects are particularly painful in Team System due to the lack of a physical file that contains project information and metadata. For example, it's impossible to check in code analysis rules on Web Site projects, because the code analysis rules are stored entirely on the client!
I prefer a website. A website is a collection of files in a directory. It becomes more portable and deployable. A web application clouds the issue with a project file.
Personally I use web application projects exclusively now. I actually converted a rather web site to a web application because of compilation times for the web site.
I also use pre-build events to move configuration specific configuration files around and pre-build and post-build events are not available in web sites.
In Visual Studio 2015, I've come to somewhat prefer web site projects over web app projects. I still use visual studio though because you get Nuget Packaging, you can install nuget packages to both types of projects.
However a WebSite Project does not have a project file, you are literally just adding a folder to your solution.
However you can still have code, but I prefer to put it in a separate project.
In WebApp projects you have your Assets, Css, Views (razor, aspx etc), Controllers/Code Behinds etc all in one project and it just mashes together. I prefer to work with websites in two halves. The front end (css, js, images, "html/cshtml/aspx/ashx/.master/etc") and the back end (all the code).
So I create a Web Site project and a class Library to accompany it (in visual studio you can add references to the web site project). I add my class Library as a dependency and all Code is in the class Library. You can still have a global.asax, you just have to tell it that the code behind is in another dll (not the one that the site will compile to). MVC views, you just specify the namespaces like normal (the dll is referrence so the namespaces are there). And in WebForms you Just have to remember to include the assembly name with your type references that the code is in.
It's a little tedious to get use to, but when you do you have isolated structure, everything is in a place that makes sense and modularized in an easy to maintain way.
And the PLUS side is that because the Web Site is just a folder (no project file) it can be opened in Visual Studio Code easily, and other popular text editors making it easy for designers to work on the css/js/images etc (which are not in the code project). Keeping the layer designers separated, the designer sees just what they need to see.
Now structure wise. I keep my code local on my machine checked into a subversion repository using Tortoise SVN and Visual SVN (java/.net shop). To test locally I install IIS and I set the website project up in IIS locally just like I would on the dev/prod servers.
Then I install MSDeploy on the dev/prod servers and I use the Publish web app feature via MSDeploy in visual studio and I use web.config transformations. So I have web.config transformations for dev and prod and the main web.config without transformations is for local testing (so it works for all devs on the project).
To previous stated cons: Having a WebSite Project vs a WebApp Project doesn't mean multiple developers can't work on it, that's only if your WebSite Project is on some server some where and you are loading it directly from there which would be bad practice.
You can treat a WebSite Project just like any other Visual Studio project, local code, source control, multiple developers.
As a final note, an added benefit of separating your code is you can put all of your code in a shared project. Then you can create a Class Library for each port you might do, say one on straight .net 4.6 and another on .net core 5 and link in your shared project. As long as your code is compatible with both, it will build and you don't have any duplicated code files.