What is the difference between ASP.NET dev server and IIS Express?

Question

Visual Studio SP1 has a facility to run the Webmatrix aka "IIS Express" from Visual Studio instead of the VS development server.

What is the difference between both? [ VS development server or IIS express].

Is there anything new and interesting for this topic?

Answer 1

Take a look a this post by Scott Guthrie: Introducing IIS Express

We think it combines the ease of use of the ASP.NET Web Server with the full power of IIS. Specifically:

• It's lightweight and easy to install (less than 10Mb download and a super quick install)
• It does not require an administrator account to run/debug applications from Visual Studio
• It enables a full web-server feature set – including SSL, URL Rewrite, Media Support, and all other IIS 7.x modules
• It supports and enables the same extensibility model and web.config file settings that IIS 7.x support
• It can be installed side-by-side with the full IIS web server as well as the ASP.NET Development Server (they do not conflict at all)
• It works on Windows XP and higher operating systems – giving you a full IIS 7.x developer feature-set on all OS platforms