Should I use individual Wordpress installs or Wordpress-Mutisite install?

Question

I wish to install many different websites, on one domain:

Some will be Wordpress sites, others not.

So I was thinking of putting each site into its own individual folder,

so their paths would be:

1. my-main-website.com/some-website-name-1
2. my-main-website.com/some-website-name-2

etc,.

Q1: So which method should I use...

• a: Set-up the one domain as a Wordpress-Multi-site ?
• b: Install each Wordpress-site individually, ie, without using the Wordpress-Multi-site option ?

Q2: If I use (b) I gather that each installed Wordpress-site would need its own database ?

Q3: What is the practical difference between the two options ?

Q4: What are the pros & cons ?

Q5: Which is the most reliable ?

Many thanks

Answer 1

Q1: So which method should I use...

a: Set-up the one domain as a Wordpress-Multi-site ? b: Install each Wordpress-site individually, ie, without using the Wordpress-Multi-site option ?

Both will satisfy your requirement

Q2: If I use (b) I gather that each installed Wordpress-site would need its own database ?

Yes and no, so long as the table prefixes are all different they will happily coexist in a single install. Though I would advise for backup purposes they have separate databases.

Q3: What is the practical difference between the two options ?

Multisite has a shared user table, and it's a single codebase rather than multiple codebases. You'll get a new super admin type of user and a network admin. However I would encourage you to ask this as an independent question, as your original question is already in danger of becoming too broad

Q4: What are the pros & cons ?

This has already been answered here:

Is there an advantage of using multisite if I have multiple WordPress websites for myself?

Q5: Which is the most reliable ?

This is a wild goose chase question, any difference in reliability is so miniscule as to be of no value for your decision making process ( e.g. should I use ice cubes from Canada, or Ice cubes from Norway in my $5 beer ).

Both are well tested and actively used by huge numbers of people.