Multiple web sites or multiple web applications in IIS6?

Question

Assuming that each app has its own app pool and that I have an unlimited number of domains/IPs handy, are there benefits to hosting applications as separate web sites as opposed to one site containing multiple applications?

Answer 1

Off the top of my head:

1. It's easier to manage/stop/start individual sites than applications under an existing site.
2. If you accidentally change the root web.config you could end up having unintended consequences in the child applications.
3. Ditto for IIS configuration changes in IIS Manager.
4. You'd have difficulty actually limiting the applications by domain name/ip address - you'd have to do your host filtering in code across all applications, while with individual sites you can explicitly point different domains at isolated applications (you only need multiple IPs if you're using SSL for them all).