Characteristics | Profile | Session |
---|---|---|
Scope | Each user has his own profile object | Each user has his own session object |
Strongly typed nature | Profile object is strongly typed | Session object is not strongly typed and requires type casting when assigning and retrieving from the session object |
Persistent duration | Profile values are available for the users, even between visits | Session object contents are available only for the duration of the current browser session |
Persistent location | Profile object can be stored in a SQL Server Express database or in a SQL Server database and can be configured through the Web Site Administration tool | Session object can be configured to be stored in a database, IIS in-process, or in a session state server, depending on the configuration setting |
Performance | Profile may have a negative impact on performance because of the chatty interface between the profile object and the persistent data store | Can be configured using properties such as EnableSessionState attributes at the page level |
IntelliSense | Provides IntelliSense because of its strongly typed nature | No support for IntelliSense |