Measuring debug vs release of ASP.NET applications

Question

Which has the biggest impact?

• Building ASP.NET applications in release vs debug mode
• Setting <compilation debug="true"> in web.config

Has anyone done any testing to get actual numbers about what the differences are, considering performance and memory usage? (Perhaps other metrics are useful as well?)

For example, something like:

Execution time     | Debug build   | Release build
-------------------+---------------+---------------
Debug web.config   | average 1     | average 2
Retail web.config  | average 3     | average 4


Max memory usage   | Debug build   | Release build
-------------------+---------------+---------------
Debug web.config   | average 1     | average 2
Retail web.config  | average 3     | average 4


Output file size   | Debug build   | Release build
-------------------+---------------+---------------
                   | size    1     | size 2

Answer 1

Here is an article that explains the drawbacks.

http://www.aspnetresources.com/articles/debug_code_in_production.aspx

In my opinion it seems to affect 'web site' applications more than 'web project' application.