Here are major characteristics and differences between site pages and application pages categorized by major areas of architectural decisions.
- Characteristics
- An Application page is an ASP.NET content page hosted in the LAYOUTs directory on the WFEs and inherits from Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.LayoutsPageBase. Site Pages are stored in the virtual file system in the Content databases. SPFile and SPFolder objects represents Site Pages in WSS object model.
- As Name Suggest, An Application Page is application or farm scoped and A site page is site/web scoped.
- Site Pages consists of two compoents => Site Page Templates vs Site Page Instances
- Site Page Templates are .aspx pages stored in the file system in the FEATURES directory.
- Site Page Instances are provisioned through Module and File elements and resides in content database. They are created inside the context of the particular site. WSS treats Un-customized Site Page Instances as a reference pointer to the Site Page Template. You can use SharePoint Designer to customize or view site page instances. Both customized or un-customized site pages exposed through the virtual file system.
